### E.4 Using the Emacs Info Reader for Octave

You can also set up the Emacs Info reader for dealing with the results of Octave's ``help -i`'. For this, the package `gnuserv` needs to be installed, which unfortunately still does not come with GNU Emacs (it does with XEmacs). It can be retrieved from any GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory archive, e.g. ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive, in the `packages` subdirectory. A recent version of gnuserv is available from http://www.meltin.net/hacks/emacs/src/gnuserv-3.12.2.tar.gz.

If `gnuserv` is installed, add the lines

         (autoload 'octave-help "octave-hlp" nil t)
         (require 'gnuserv)
         (gnuserv-start)

to your `.emacs` file.

You can use either `plain' Emacs Info or the function `octave-help` as your Octave info reader (for ``help -i`'). In the former case, set the Octave variable `INFO_PROGRAM` to `"info-emacs-info"`. The latter is perhaps more attractive because it allows to look up keys in the indices of several info files related to Octave (provided that the Emacs variable `octave-help-files` is set correctly). In this case, set `INFO_PROGRAM` to `"info-emacs-octave-help"`.

If you use Octave from within Emacs, these settings are best done in the `~/.emacs-octave` startup file (or the file pointed to by the Emacs variable `inferior-octave-startup-file`).