Re: puzzled with load-path entries - where do they come from when .emacs is empty?

[Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com>]

Mirko wrote:
> I found site-lisp/site-start.d with auctex.el and preview-latex.el.
> That explains the auctex message during startup.  But still no clue as
> to where load-path gets preloaded.
> 
> Actually, could it be that emacs populates load-path automatically
> based on the contents of the site-lisp directory?  That would explain
> everything.

See the "Startup Summary" node of the Emacs Lisp manual:

| The order of operations performed (in `startup.el') by Emacs when it is
| started up is as follows:
|
|   1. It adds subdirectories to `load-path', by running the file named
|     `subdirs.el' in each directory in the list.  Normally this file
|      adds the directory's subdirectories to the list, and these will be
|      scanned in their turn.  The files `subdirs.el' are normally
|      generated automatically by Emacs installation.

To see how load-path is initialized while building Emacs, see the
Makefile (itself generated from Makefile.in by configure):

| # Where to install the lisp files distributed with
| # Emacs.  This includes the Emacs version, so that the
| # lisp files for different versions of Emacs will install
| # themselves in separate directories.
| lispdir=${datadir}/emacs/${version}/lisp
|
| # Directories Emacs should search for lisp files specific
| # to this site (i.e. customizations), before consulting
| # ${lispdir}.  This should be a colon-separated list of
| # directories.
| 
locallisppath=${datadir}/emacs/${version}/site-lisp:${datadir}/emacs/site-lisp
|
| # Where Emacs will search to find its lisp files.  Before
| # changing this, check to see if your purpose wouldn't
| # better be served by changing locallisppath.  This
| # should be a colon-separated list of directories.
| lisppath=${locallisppath}:${lispdir}:${datadir}/emacs/${version}/leim


-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA