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<span id="Directory-File"></span><div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="New-Info-File.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">New Info File</a>, Up: <a href="Installing-an-Info-File.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Installing an Info File</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<hr>
<span id="The-Directory-File-dir"></span><h4 class="subsection">21.2.1 The Directory File <samp>dir</samp></h4>
<p>For Info to work, the <samp>info</samp> directory must contain a file that
serves as a top level directory for the Info system. By convention,
this file is called <samp>dir</samp>. (You can find the location of this file
within Emacs by typing <kbd>C-h i</kbd> to enter Info and then typing
<kbd>C-x C-f</kbd> to see the pathname to the <samp>info</samp> directory.)
</p>
<p>The <samp>dir</samp> file is itself an Info file. It contains the top level
menu for all the Info files in the system. The menu looks like
this:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">* Menu:
* Info: (info). Documentation browsing system.
* Emacs: (emacs). The extensible, self-documenting
text editor.
* Texinfo: (texinfo). With one source file, make
either a printed manual using
@TeX{} or an Info file.
…
</pre></div>
<p>Each of these menu entries points to the ‘Top’ node of the Info file
that is named in parentheses. (The menu entry does not need to
specify the ‘Top’ node, since Info goes to the ‘Top’ node if no node
name is mentioned. See <a href="Other-Info-Files.html">Nodes in Other Info
Files</a>.)
</p>
<p>Thus, the ‘<samp>Info</samp>’ entry points to the ‘Top’ node of the
<samp>info</samp> file and the ‘<samp>Emacs</samp>’ entry points to the ‘Top’ node
of the <samp>emacs</samp> file.
</p>
<p>In each of the Info files, the ‘Up’ pointer of the ‘Top’ node refers
back to the <code>dir</code> file. For example, the line for the ‘Top’
node of the Emacs manual looks like this in Info:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">File: emacs Node: Top, Up: (DIR), Next: Distrib
</pre></div>
<p>In this case, the <samp>dir</samp> file name is written in uppercase
letters—it can be written in either upper- or lowercase. This is not
true in general, it is a special case for <samp>dir</samp>.
</p>
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Next: <a href="New-Info-File.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">New Info File</a>, Up: <a href="Installing-an-Info-File.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Installing an Info File</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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