Re: lexbind ready for merge

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

Tassilo Horn writes:

 > >> AFAIKS, gnus doesn't use the foo.el file anyway, so basically that arg
 > >> can be removed.  But maybe the `byte-compile-from-buffer' definition in
 > >> [[S]X]Emacs requires exactly 2 arguments?  I don't know...

(defun byte-compile-from-buffer (byte-compile-inbuffer filename &optional eval)
  ;; buffer --> output-buffer, or buffer --> eval form, return nil

I don't know why FILENAME is not optional in XEmacs; it can be nil.
It can be used in non-trivial ways in that function.  Among others, it
is used in an error message, which would be confusing if the value
were nil.  For that reason, I personally would tend to oppose changing
the signature, to remind callers that null FILENAME is not without
drawbacks.

It's not clear to me what the semantics of the other uses of FILENAME
are, but since it's explicitly tested as a boolean at least once,
XEmacs is apparently prepared for it to be nil.

 > > Why on earth does Gnus need to call byte-compile-from-buffer?

"The Gnus that is the true Gnus calls byte-compiler-from-buffer.
Otherwise it would not be Gnus."

                                    -- larsi-tse, "Gnus Te Ching"

<wink />