This line is a dumb hack to keep emacs paren balancing happy }

    my $properties = &read_properties($filename);
    $properties = &handle_infon_block($properties, $filename);

For the .info file lines processed into the hash ref $properties from file $filename, deal with the possibility that the whole thing is in a InfoN: block.

If so, make sure this fink is new enough to understand this .info format (i.e., =max_info_level). If so, promote the fields of the block up to the top level of %$properties and return a ref to this new hash. Also set a _info_level key to N.

If an error with InfoN occurs (N>max_info_level, more than one InfoN block, or part of $properties existing outside the InfoN block) print a warning message and return a ref to an empty hash (i.e., ignore the .info file).