Re: Emacs's handling of line numbers [from bug#5042]

[Mark Lillibridge <mark.lillibridge@hp.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>  Mark Lillibridge <mark.lillibridge@hp.com> wrote:
>  >     The issue is that font-lock mode, goto-line, linum mode, and perhaps
>  > other features need to treat them differently.  These features want to
>  > widen to the "application" restriction when processing the current
>  > buffer, ignoring any temporary restriction.
>  
>  But if this is the problem you want to solve, you cannot solve it by
>  introducing yet another kind of restriction: there's always a chance
>  that a command will want to use the "application" restriction, when
>  one is already in place, because, e.g., you have font-lock or whatever
>  active.  And then you are back at the same problem.
>  
>  IOW, by introducing 2 kinds of restriction, you don't solve the
>  problem, you just push it a bit farther.
>  
>  Moreover, I'm not sure I see the problem that is grave enough to
>  justify this.  The 3 examples you mentioned can be solved by
>  programming the features to do what you want (I believe font-lock
>  already solved it, albeit not too elegantly).  I understand now the
>  difference between two classes of use of restriction (thanks to all
>  who labored to explain that to this old fart), but are there
>  _practical_ use-cases where the current situation gets in our way so
>  badly that such a new feature would be justified?  I wonder.

    Personally, the problem I need fixed is that goto-line and linum
mode number lines inconsistently.  Given that linum mode already numbers
the first line of a restriction starting with one and Info mode looks weird
if we start numbering at the beginning of the physical buffer, I think
the minimal change would be to change goto-line to number lines so that
the first line of the current restriction is 1.  

    Some wanted an option to control whether line numbers were numbered
from the beginning of the restriction or the beginning of the physical
buffer and some (others?) to solve this problem (which characters really
belong to the (logical) buffer) once and for all.

- Mark