7 Index Commands
GNU Info has commands to search through the indices of an Info file,
which helps you find areas within an Info file which discuss a
particular topic.
- i (
index-search
) ¶
-
Look up a string in the indices for this Info file, and select a node
to which the found index entry points.
- I (
virtual-index
) ¶
-
Look up a string in the indices for this Info file, and show all the
matches in a new virtual node, synthesized on the fly.
- , (
next-index-match
) ¶
-
Move to the node containing the next matching index item from the last
‘i’ command.
- M-x index-apropos ¶
Grovel the indices of all the known Info files on your system for a
string, and build a menu of the possible matches.
The most efficient means of finding something quickly in a manual is
the ‘i’ command (index-search
). This command prompts for
a string, and then looks for that string in all the indices of the
current Info manual. If it finds a matching index entry, it displays
the node to which that entry refers and prints the full text of the
entry in the echo area. You can press ‘,’
(next-index-match
) to find more matches. A good Info manual
has all of its important concepts indexed, so the ‘i’ command
lets you use a manual as a reference.
If you don’t know what manual documents something, try the M-x
index-apropos command. It prompts for a string and then looks up
that string in all the indices of all the Info documents installed on
your system. It can also be invoked from the command line; see
--apropos.