From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: why does `variable-at-point' return 0?
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 17:23:07 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <2F0E226322EE44669007194BC8389F81@us.oracle.com> (raw)
Just curious. Why doesn't `variable-at-point' return nil if there is no
variable at point?
All I can think of is that for some reason someone wanted to test using
`symbolp' instead of testing using `not' (or `and'). But I cannot imagine why.
Checking how `variable-at-point' is actually used in the source code did not
enlighten me. Each use just checks whether the value is `symbolp' and goes on
from there. An actual value of zero is never used AFAICT, except to serve as a
non-symbol.
There is no special need to distinguish nil from any variable - in Emacs Lisp
you cannot give the symbol nil a symbol-value other than nil.
It is true that (boundp nil) is true, so `boundp' is not a test of variableness.
But I don't see why it wouldn't be just as easy to test whether the value is nil
instead of testing whether it is a symbol. What am I missing?
next reply other threads:[~2012-04-07 0:23 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2012-04-07 0:23 Drew Adams [this message]
2012-04-16 18:07 ` why does `variable-at-point' return 0? Drew Adams
2012-04-19 19:50 ` Štěpán Němec
2012-04-19 21:28 ` Drew Adams
2012-04-19 21:52 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-04-19 22:56 ` Juanma Barranquero
2012-04-20 18:14 ` Štěpán Němec
2012-04-20 22:57 ` Juanma Barranquero
2012-04-21 2:24 ` Stefan Monnier
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