bug#61210: 28.2; Request to modify code which can accidentally overwrite AUCTeX function

[Ikumi Keita <ikumi@ikumi.que.jp>]

I'm working on arranging AUCTeX to reconcile built-in tex modes better.
One of the primary aim is to avoid clash of major mode name; for
example, to change `latex-mode' to `LaTeX-mode'. In the course of
reviewing the code, I realized the following problem.

If we do that in natural ways like
(define-derived-mode LaTeX-mode text-mode "LaTeX" ...)
or
(defun LaTeX-mode () ...)
, it could wreak havoc because tex-mode.el has these lines:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
;;;###autoload
(defalias 'TeX-mode #'tex-mode)
;;;###autoload
(defalias 'plain-TeX-mode #'plain-tex-mode)
;;;###autoload
(defalias 'LaTeX-mode #'latex-mode)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
These defalias'es overwrite the AUCTeX definition unconditionally if
tex-mode.el are loaded after AUCTeX. So AUCTeX has to do workarounds
like
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(define-derived-mode TeX-latex-mode text-mode "LaTeX"
  ...
  (setq major-mode 'LaTeX-mode)
  ...)
(defalias 'LaTeX-mode #'TeX-latex-mode)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
and advertise `LaTeX-mode' as its official name. (Additionally, we need
some gotchas so that directory local variable entry like
((LaTeX-mode
  (...)))
should work.)

Hence I'd like to request to modify the built-in tex-modes.el to delete
those lines, or at least to do fboundp test like
(unless (fboundp 'LaTeX-mode)
  (defalias 'LaTeX-mode #'latex-mode))
in, say, emacs-30.

If that is accepted, we can clean up the above workarounds in the
future, when the least emacs version supported by AUCTeX becomes 30.

Regards,
Ikumi Keita
#StandWithUkraine #StopWarInUkraine



In GNU Emacs 28.2 (build 1, x86_64-unknown-freebsd13.1, GTK+ Version 3.24.33, cairo version 1.17.4)
 of 2022-09-15 built on freebsd.vmware
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12101004
System Description: 13.1-RELEASE-p5

Configured using:
 'configure --with-canna --with-canna-includes=/usr/local/canna/include
--with-canna-libraries=/usr/local/canna/lib --without-xim
--disable-largefile --without-modules --with-sound=yes
--with-file-notification=yes CFLAGS=-O3'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON
LCMS2 LIBXML2 NOTIFY KQUEUE PDUMPER PNG RSVG SOUND THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $EMACSLOADPATH: /home/keita/elisp:
  value of $LANG: ja_JP.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  TeX-PDF-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
/home/keita/.emacs.d/elpa/transient-20230124.2013/transient hides /usr/local/share/emacs/28.2/lisp/transient
~/elisp/reftex-parse hides /usr/local/share/emacs/28.2/lisp/textmodes/reftex-parse
/home/keita/.emacs.d/elpa/soap-client-3.2.1/soap-inspect hides /usr/local/share/emacs/28.2/lisp/net/soap-inspect
/home/keita/.emacs.d/elpa/soap-client-3.2.1/soap-client hides /usr/local/share/emacs/28.2/lisp/net/soap-client

Features:
(shadow emacsbug mh-thread supercite regi mh-identity mh-letter mh-comp
sendmail reftex-sel reftex-ref reftex-parse preview reftex-dcr
reftex-auc reftex reftex-loaddefs reftex-vars tex-bar toolbar-x noutline
outline tex-mode shell pcomplete font-latex tex-jp latex easy-mmode
latex-flymake flymake-proc flymake project compile comint ansi-color
ring warnings tex-ispell tex-style tex texmathp latexenc mh-search qp
mm-archive smiley mail-extr mh-mime mh-gnus mh-alias multi-prompt crm
mh-show goto-addr thingatpt gnus-cite gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 mm-view
mml-smime smime dig gnus-sum shr svg dom gnus-group gnus-undo gnus-start
gnus-dbus dbus gnus-cloud nnimap nnmail mail-source utf7 netrc nnoo
gnus-spec gnus-int message dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode gmm-utils mailheader gnus-win gnus-range
gnus nnheader wid-edit mh-seq mh-inc hl-line mh-tool-bar mh-xface
mh-utils mh-folder which-func imenu gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs
mail-utils text-property-search mh-scan mh-e mh-compat mailabbrev
mh-buffers mh-loaddefs skeleton misearch multi-isearch conf-mode
mule-util kinsoku cl-extra help-mode parse-time iso8601 time-date
ucs-normalize epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config url-http url-auth
mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util ietf-drums mail-prsvr url-gw
nsm rmc puny jka-compr twittering-mode advice xml edmacro kmacro
preview-latex tex-site canna-im info package browse-url url url-proxy
url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie url-domsuf
url-util mailcap url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio
eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache json subr-x map
url-vars seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib
japan-util iso-transl tooltip eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook
vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win
term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932
hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic
chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook
jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray cl-preloaded nadvice button
loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay
sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind kqueue lcms2
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo
move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 823574 92247)
 (symbols 48 23600 10)
 (strings 32 129178 21854)
 (string-bytes 1 5678353)
 (vectors 16 74334)
 (vector-slots 8 1690475 62672)
 (floats 8 431 886)
 (intervals 56 20117 6833)
 (buffers 992 34))