Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>Actually, it's a deliberately programmed feature.  It's even described
>in the manual: relative file names are interpreted as being relative
>to one of the directories mentioned in the INFOPATH environment
>variable (or in the default Info search path if INFOPATH is
>undefined).
>
>It mimics the behavior of a Unix shell when searching for executable
>programs: the current directory is never searched, unless you have "."
>in your PATH.
>
One could argue that there is a fundamental difference between a shell 
and other programs: the shell executes programs; most others treat their 
arguments as input files.  In the context of a shell, it makes sense to 
apply a search path to prevent users from accidentally executing the 
wrong program.  You will note that it is not necessary to run `gdb 
./a.out' to debug a program of that name in the current working 
directory.  In the case of Info, the behaviour you describe creates, in 
practice, more problems than it solves.

Cheers, Ben