Trouble with eval-when-compile.

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, everybody.

Any chance of a tip?

I have two files like this (grossly simplified, of course):

when-compile-sub.el:
    (defconst str "Foo")
    (provide 'when-compile-sub)

when-compile.el:
    (eval-when-compile
      (require 'when-compile-sub))

    (defconst strng `,str)
    (message "strng is %s" strng)

I think it's clear what I want to do - that is, to (require
when-compile-sub.elc) only at compile time, and use the value of a
constant at runtime in the main file.

Both files compile OK.  But when I try to load when-compile.elc, with

    emacs -Q -batch -l when-compile.elc

, I get the error message:

    Symbol's value as variable is void: str

What is going on here?  str is merely a compile time constant.  Why is
anything about str still hanging around at runtime?

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).