Are there any complementary tools for the info command?

Question

I've been using man for a while and know there commands like apropos or whatis that refer to man pages.

But, are there any equivalent of theses or some complementary tools of the same sort for texinfo tools?

Answer 1

As far as I know, doesn't exist any complementary tools for info command. But if you want something like how whatis is for man, you can create your own 'tools'. For example, you can create some shell functions (like an alias):

about () { info $1 2>/dev/null | sed -n 6,8p; }

or, maybe better:

inf () { info 2>/dev/null | grep "* $1:" | sed 's/ \+ /\t/g' | cut -f2; }

Some outputs:

$ about () { info $1 2>/dev/null | sed -n 6,8p; }
$ #some outputs for 'about' function defined above
$ about ls
The `ls' program lists information about files (of any type, including
directories).  Options and file arguments can be intermixed
arbitrarily, as usual.
$ about cp
`cp' copies files (or, optionally, directories).  The copy is
completely independent of the original.  You can either copy one file to
another, or copy arbitrarily many files to a destination directory.
$ about yes
`yes' prints the command line arguments, separated by spaces and
followed by a newline, forever until it is killed.  If no arguments are
given, it prints `y' followed by a newline forever until killed.
$
$ inf () { info 2>/dev/null | grep "* $1:" | sed 's/ \+ /\t/g' | cut -f2; }
$ #some outputs for 'inf' function
$ inf ls
List directory contents.
$ inf cp
Copy files.
$ inf cut
Print selected parts of lines.
$ inf grep
Print lines matching a pattern.
$ inf sed
Stream EDitor.