Re: how-many/count-matches for non-interactive use

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    If the macro is called with M-1000 or M-0, then, if nothing else, all
    these messages might slow macro execution down.

That is the motive for the existing definition of interactive-p.

    It is not clear to me whether we are currently discussing _changing_
    the behavior of `interactive-p', or declaring it obsolete.  

Someone proposed declaring it obsolete, but that by itself won't solve
the problem.

The immediate problem is that there are many uses of interactive-p,
and many of them, perhaps all, are now incorrect.  We need to either
change those uses or change interactive-p.  If we change
interactive-p, the uses which are now incorrect will become correct.
However, any uses which are now correct would need to be changed.

These are the ONLY two approaches that would make these commands
correct.

The first step in fixing this is to take inventory.  Which uses of
interactive-p are correct with the current definition of
interactive-p?  Which would be correct with the modified definition of
interactive-p that would not check for macros?

Would someone like to check them?

    On the other hand, there also is the problem that `interactive-p'
    returns t while _defining_ a keyboard macro.  It would appear to be
    deceiving to the user to have different behavior while _defining_ the
    macro and while executing it.

If we change the definition, it won't check for macros at all.