What does byte-compile a variable containing a lambda do?

What does byte-compile a variable containing a lambda do?

[Lennart Borgman]

The help text for byte-compile says

    byte-compile is a compiled Lisp function in `bytecomp.el'.

    (byte-compile form)

    If form is a symbol, byte-compile its function definition.
    If form is a lambda or a macro, byte-compile it as a function.

I do not understand the last sentence. What happens? If a variable
contains a lambda and you do

    (byte-compile VAR-WITH-LAMBDA)

what happens? Is the content of the variable changed or does
byte-compile return something?

Re: What does byte-compile a variable containing a lambda do?

[Andreas Schwab]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> The help text for byte-compile says
>
>     byte-compile is a compiled Lisp function in `bytecomp.el'.
>
>     (byte-compile form)
>
>     If form is a symbol, byte-compile its function definition.
>     If form is a lambda or a macro, byte-compile it as a function.
>
> I do not understand the last sentence. What happens? If a variable
> contains a lambda and you do
>
>     (byte-compile VAR-WITH-LAMBDA)

Since byte-compile is a regular function, it can only see the value it
gets passed.  So unless you pass it a symbol (first case) it can only
return the byte compiled form without side effect.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: What does byte-compile a variable containing a lambda do?

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The help text for byte-compile says
>>
>>     byte-compile is a compiled Lisp function in `bytecomp.el'.
>>
>>     (byte-compile form)
>>
>>     If form is a symbol, byte-compile its function definition.
>>     If form is a lambda or a macro, byte-compile it as a function.
>>
>> I do not understand the last sentence. What happens? If a variable
>> contains a lambda and you do
>>
>>     (byte-compile VAR-WITH-LAMBDA)
>
> Since byte-compile is a regular function, it can only see the value it
> gets passed.  So unless you pass it a symbol (first case) it can only
> return the byte compiled form without side effect.

Yes, but in the first case in the doc string it byte compiles the
function definition "in place". In the second case I think it should
say that it returns the byte compiled function, or?