Should vtable-goto-object use 'equal instead of 'eq?

[Kristoffer Balintona <krisbalintona@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I have been using vtable.el for a project of mine and have come across a
bit of an undesirable design choice in vtable, namely, in
vtable-goto-object. Its definition on master is as follows:

        (defun vtable-goto-object (object)
          "Go to OBJECT in the current table.
        Return the position of the object if found, and nil if not."
          (let ((start (point)))
            (vtable-beginning-of-table)
            (save-restriction
              (narrow-to-region (point) (save-excursion (vtable-end-of-table)))
              (if (text-property-search-forward 'vtable-object object #'eq)
                  (progn
                    (forward-line -1)
                    (point))
                (goto-char start)
                nil))))

The relevant line is the one calling text-property-search-forward. I am
wondering whether using equal instead of eq as the predicate is
preferable.

Take the following example. The objects in a given vtable are strings.
For whatever reason, I would like to go to the vtable object
corresponding to the string "foo." I call (vtable-goto-object "foo") but
it returns nil (does nothing). The reason is because vtable-goto-object
uses eq instead of equal. This same situation occurs regardless of what
kind of objec the vtable uses.

As far as I can think of, the only way to productively use
vtable-goto-object is if the objects are stored in e.g. a variable and
referenced within that variable somehow, which is a significant
constraint.

The only case where eq would be desirable is if the vtable contains
duplicate objects, that is, objects which return t on equal but nil on
eq. With these cases in mind, would it be best for vtable-goto-object to
have as a parameter the predicate used by text-property-search-forward
(the default being eq)?

-- 
Best,
Kristoffer