Re: ?\_ patch

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Ken'ichi HANDA wrote:

   I object to it.

   By grepping, I found many files under lisp subdir are using
   "?\_" for representing "?_" (e.g. calc/calc-ext.el).  Some
   are using ?\X unconditionaly even in the place where ?X
   works.

   That means there are much more such files not included in
   Emacs distribution.  If we change the meaning of ?\_, all of
   them stop working.

I did not realize people would be doing this, especially since I saw
no recommendation to quote `_' anywhere.

I now agree with you.

This leaves two solutions: use ?\s, which is somewhat confusing, but
perfectly safe since it has been "protected" by an error message for
ages, or change the default value of tabify-regexp to leave ?\ alone.

Of course, the second solution would mean that personal customizations
of tabify-regexp would be dangerous.

I now lean toward the original solution of using ?\s.

Alternatives like using 32,  ?\040 or  ?\x20 do not look attractive.

Sincerely,

Luc.