Info is a software utility which forms a

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...

ual, multipage documentation and help viewer working on a

command-line interface A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...

. Info reads ''info'' files generated by the '' texinfo'' program and presents the documentation as a

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

with simple commands to traverse the tree and to follow cross references. For instance, pressing the space bar scrolls down within the current tree node or goes to the next node in the current document if already at the bottom of the current node, allowing to read the contents of an info file sequentially. Pressing the

backspace Backspace (, ⌫) is the keyboard key that in typewriters originally pushed the carriage one position backwards, and in modern computer systems typically moves the display cursor one position backwards,The meaning of "backwards" depends on the dir ...

key moves in the opposite direction. Furthermore: * goes to the next node in the current document. * goes to the previous node in the current document. * goes to the next node on the same level as the current node. * goes to the previous node on the same level as the current node. * ("up") goes to the parent of the current node. * goes to the last visited node. * Moving the cursor over a ''link'' (a word preceded by an asterisk) and pressing the enter key follows the link. * Pressing the tab key will move the cursor to the next nearest link. The C implementation of info was designed as the main documentation system of GNU based

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s and was then ported to other

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

operating systems. However, info files had already been in use on ITS

emacs Emacs (), originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor Macros"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...

. On the TOPS-20 operating system INFO was called XINFO.Stacy, Christopher C. (1982)
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Working Papers, WP-235, Getting Started Computing at the AI Lab
/ref>

List of Info readers

* GNU info, distributed with Texinfo
pinfo

tkinfo

khelpcenter
*

info.vim
(Vim plugin)
vinfo
(Vim plugin)
GNOME Yelp

References

{{Unix commands Unix software Software help Command-line software Computer file formats

List of Info readers

See also

References