`key-binding' and XEmacs-style events

["Stuart D. Herring" <herring@lanl.gov>]

I have noticed, when writing some automatic key-generation code, that
(key-binding [(?a)]) (or any other character) yields a type error because
?a is not a symbol.  The problem is that at keymap.c:1615, if the
function's argument is a vector and its first element is a cons, it is
assumed that the element is a mouse-like event which is a list started by
a symbol.  This does no particular harm for (key-binding [(control ?a)])
because 'control is merely discovered to have no interesting properties as
an event symbol, but it's a problem in the trivial one-character case.

Obviously (key-binding [?a]) works just as well, but in order to write
code that flexibly manipulates keystrokes it would be nice if the XEmacs
syntax could always be used even in degenerate cases.  I don't claim to
understand events very well, so perhaps I am alone in this opinion, but
this strikes me as a bug.  Thoughts?

Davis

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