Autoloading (was: bug#5752: 23.1.94; sgml-lexical-context in post-command-hook)

Autoloading (was: bug#5752: 23.1.94; sgml-lexical-context in post-command-hook)

[Stefan Monnier]

> Fixed in emacs-23 branch by autoloading sgml-lexical-context in
> flyspell.el.

BTW, such manual autoloads are slightly problematic since they fail to
provide docstrings (and arglists).

I'm not sure how best to resolve such issues, but one solution I've been
considering (for quite a while yet, but have never found time to dig
into it) is to introduce a new form (require-autoload <feature>) which
would behave as follows:
- when interpreting, it's just a require (we can't do much better).
- when compiling, it causes the package to be loaded at compile time but
  in the .elc it's replaced by a bunch of autoloads (computed by the
  byte-compiler based on the intersection of the set of functions
  defined by <feature> and the set of functions called from the .elc
  file).


-- Stefan

Re: Autoloading

[Glenn Morris]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

> BTW, such manual autoloads are slightly problematic since they fail to
> provide docstrings (and arglists).
>
> I'm not sure how best to resolve such issues

I suggest compilation warnings.

Re: Autoloading

[Stefan Monnier]

>> BTW, such manual autoloads are slightly problematic since they fail to
>> provide docstrings (and arglists).
>> 
>> I'm not sure how best to resolve such issues

> I suggest compilation warnings.

What kinds of wanrings?  You mean the byte-compiler should compare the
docstring and arglist from the (manual) autoload statement to the
docstring and arglist from the package?


        Stefan

Re: Autoloading

[Glenn Morris]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>>> BTW, such manual autoloads are slightly problematic since they fail to
>>> provide docstrings (and arglists).
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure how best to resolve such issues
>
>> I suggest compilation warnings.
>
> What kinds of wanrings? 

The kind that make an-obviously-not-very-funny-joke... ;)

Re: Autoloading (was: bug#5752: 23.1.94; sgml-lexical-context in post-command-hook)

[Agustin Martin]

2010/3/23 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>:
>> Fixed in emacs-23 branch by autoloading sgml-lexical-context in
>> flyspell.el.
>
> BTW, such manual autoloads are slightly problematic since they fail to
> provide docstrings (and arglists).

I am seeing an obscure problem with sgml-lexical-context  and Debian
emacs-snapshot, when used together with psgml as preferred sgml mode.
psgml provides 'sgml-mode, but has no `sgml-lexical-context'
definition. Either if I manually load 'sgml-mode' or trust autoload at
some points I get errors like.

Error in post-command-hook: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil)
sgml-lexical-context: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil

Function seems loaded since describe-function sgml-lexical-context
works, and I can even explicitly evaluate it in the buffer (and seems
to evaluate correctly).

Cheers,