[texinfo-pretest] Problems with spanish update

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Werner, it's extremely interesting, but I am not sure what I can do
> with it.  Could you please explain a little?

The code maps UTF-8 encoded Unicode characters >= U+0080 to texinfo
macros like @=A or @copyright.  Characters not defined with
\DeclareUnicodeCharacter cause a warning and are ignored.

> E.g., will it break current behavior if I include it in texinfo.tex?

I don't think so since the current code in texinfo.tex just makes
bytes in the range 128-255 printable, and nothing else.  On the other
hand, it won't work with the `txi-xx.tex' files because they are not
in UTF-8.

> And, is it complete enough that if I enabled it for
> @documentencoding utf8 (or whatever), it could actually handle a
> reasonable set of UTF-8 input files?

I've added all precomposed Unicode 4.1 latin characters which consist
of a base glyph and a single accent, and which are reliably
representable with texinfo macros (and nothing else).

>     % This UTF-8 parser is based on LaTeX's `utf8.def'.
> 
> Also, I hate to ask this, but how much does "based" mean?

It means that I've taken the code, removed all `@' signs, adapted the
macro names, and added some additional glue stuff so that it actually
works.  With other words, it's directly derived.

> LPPL and GPL are not compatible :(.

Too late.  Well, do whatever you want to do with it.  I don't have
time to rewrite the stuff.  You might use the utf-8 parser from my CJK
package, which uses GPL.  Maybe you can ask Frank Mittelbach whether
this code snippet can be licensed with both LPPL and GPL.


    Werner