bug#15179: describe-variable vs. aliases

bug#15179: describe-variable vs. aliases

[jidanni]

emacs-snapshot:
  Installed: 2:20130821-1

      inhibit-startup-screen is a variable defined in `startup.el'.
      Its value is t
      Original value was nil

      Documentation:
      Non-nil inhibits the startup screen.

      This is for use in your personal init file (but NOT site-start.el),
      once you are familiar with the contents of the startup screen.

      You can customize this variable.

OK but where did I change it? After an hour of looking in all my files I
gave up.


      inhibit-splash-screen is a variable defined in `startup.el'.
      Its value is t

        This variable is an alias for `inhibit-startup-screen'.

      Documentation:
      Non-nil inhibits the startup screen.

      This is for use in your personal init file (but NOT site-start.el),
      once you are familiar with the contents of the startup screen.

      You can customize this variable.


Oh!

Better would be if checking either revealed the whole picture, and also
mention where the latter was changed (.emacs).

bug#15179: describe-variable vs. aliases

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

jidanni@jidanni.org writes:

>       inhibit-startup-screen is a variable defined in `startup.el'.
>       Its value is t
>       Original value was nil

[...]

>       inhibit-splash-screen is a variable defined in `startup.el'.
>       Its value is t
>
>         This variable is an alias for `inhibit-startup-screen'.

[...]

> Better would be if checking either revealed the whole picture, and also
> mention where the latter was changed (.emacs).

So the request is to have `C-h v' list all variables that are aliases of
the one we want to have described.  And that does seem useful.

But is that information available?  We have the chain going the other
way in Findirect_variable...  I guess we could loop over obarray and run
that function on all the symbols and create a reverse map?

Is there an easier way?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#15179: describe-variable vs. aliases

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> But is that information available?  We have the chain going the other
> way in Findirect_variable...  I guess we could loop over obarray and run
> that function on all the symbols and create a reverse map?
>
> Is there an easier way?

Well, looping over obarray is easy and fast enough, I guess, so I just
added that to Emacs 27.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no