6.4 Creating Pointers with makeinfo

The makeinfo program has a feature for automatically determining node pointers for a hierarchically organized document. We highly recommend using it.

When you take advantage of this feature, you do not need to write the `Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers after the name of a node. However, you must write a sectioning command, such as @chapter or @section, on the line immediately following each truncated @node line (except that comment lines may intervene).

In addition, you must follow the `Top' @node line with a line beginning with @top to mark the `Top' node in the file. See section @top.

Finally, you must write the name of each node (except for the `Top' node) in a menu that is one or more hierarchical levels above the node's hierarchical level.

If you use a detailed menu in your master menu (see section Parts of a Master Menu), mark it with the @detailmenu @dots{} @end detailmenu environment, or makeinfo will get confused, typically about the last and/or first node in the document.

This implicit node pointer creation feature in makeinfo relieves you from the need to update menus and pointers manually or with Texinfo mode commands. (See section Updating Nodes and Menus.)

In most cases, you will want to take advantage of this feature and not redundantly specify node pointers. However, Texinfo documents are not required to be organized hierarchically or in fact to contain sectioning commands at all (for example, if you never intend the document to be printed). The special procedure for handling the short text before a menu (see section Menus) also disables this feature, for that group of nodes. In those cases, you will need to explicitly specify all pointers.