apropos aborts too easily

[David Byers <davby@ida.liu.se>]

In GNU Emacs 21.2.2 (i386-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2002-10-16 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-linux --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes
 --with-x-toolkit=athena --without-gif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: en_US
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:


M-x apropos aborts when there is an error in the documentation file.
Typically the error message is something along the lines of "Invalid
data in documentation file -- ^A followed by code 0134".

This seems to happen when I recompile an elisp file without reloading
it, something I do frequently when developing elisp code.

I think if would be better if the error message was placed in the
apropos buffer and did not cause apropos to abort.


The patch I use is below. It does not print the specific error message
in the apropos buffer; it just prints a message saying there was an
error, regardless of what error it was, which is good enough for me.


--- /usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp/apropos.el   2001-10-22 03:25:59.000000000 +0200
+++ apropos-patched.el  2002-12-31 21:34:04.000000000 +0100
@@ -235,37 +235,46 @@
           (if (setq doc (condition-case nil
                     (documentation symbol t)
                   (void-function
-                   "(alias for undefined function)")))
+                   "(alias for undefined function)")
+                                   (error "(error retrieving function documentation)")))
               (substring doc 0 (string-match "\n" doc))
             "(not documented)"))
         (when (boundp symbol)
-          (if (setq doc (documentation-property
-                 symbol 'variable-documentation t))
-              (substring doc 0 (string-match "\n" doc))
-            "(not documented)"))
+          (condition-case  nil
+                       (if (setq doc (documentation-property
+                                      symbol 'variable-documentation t))
+                           (substring doc 0 (string-match "\n" doc))
+                         "(not documented)")
+                     (error "(error retrieving variable documentation)")))
         (when (setq properties (symbol-plist symbol))
           (setq doc (list (car properties)))
           (while (setq properties (cdr (cdr properties)))
             (setq doc (cons (car properties) doc)))
           (mapconcat #'symbol-name (nreverse doc) " "))
         (when (get symbol 'widget-type)
-          (if (setq doc (documentation-property
-                 symbol 'widget-documentation t))
-              (substring doc 0
-                 (string-match "\n" doc))
-            "(not documented)"))
+                   (condition-case nil
+                       (if (setq doc (documentation-property
+                                      symbol 'widget-documentation t))
+                           (substring doc 0
+                                      (string-match "\n" doc))
+                         "(not documented)")
+                     (error "(error retrieving widget documentation)")))
         (when (facep symbol)
-          (if (setq doc (documentation-property
-                 symbol 'face-documentation t))
-              (substring doc 0
-                 (string-match "\n" doc))
-            "(not documented)"))
+                   (condition-case nil
+                       (if (setq doc (documentation-property
+                                      symbol 'face-documentation t))
+                           (substring doc 0
+                                      (string-match "\n" doc))
+                         "(not documented)")
+                     (error "(error retrieving face documentation)")))
         (when (get symbol 'custom-group)
-          (if (setq doc (documentation-property
-                 symbol 'group-documentation t))
-              (substring doc 0
-                 (string-match "\n" doc))
-            "(not documented)"))))
+                   (condition-case nil
+                       (if (setq doc (documentation-property
+                                      symbol 'group-documentation t))
+                           (substring doc 0
+                                      (string-match "\n" doc))
+                         "(not documented)")
+                     (error "(error retrieveing custom-group documentation)")))))
       (setq p (cdr p))))
   (apropos-print
    (or do-all apropos-do-all)


-- 
David Byers.