find-function-C-source-directory

find-function-C-source-directory

[Lennart Borgman]

It is quite hard for those downloading prebuilt binaries of Emacs to 
view the C sources. Would it be possible to document somewhere in the 
manual how to do this through the help functions? Or, maybe better: 
could perhaps the help functions tell a bit about 
`find-function-C-source-directory '?

I think it could be relevant to fix this before the pretest since it 
might give more feedback.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 23:50:08 +0200
> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> 
> It is quite hard for those downloading prebuilt binaries of Emacs to 
> view the C sources.

Could you elaborate a bit: what makes it hard?

I assume you are talking about users that do have the sources on their
machine, so the only problem is that the source directory is not what
is recorded in the binary.  If so, the only problem I know of is that
they need to type in the directory where they have the sources, only
once per session, when Emacs prompts for it.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Richard Stallman]

    It is quite hard for those downloading prebuilt binaries of Emacs to 
    view the C sources.

Why do you think it is hard?

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 23:50:08 +0200
>> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
>>
>> It is quite hard for those downloading prebuilt binaries of Emacs to 
>> view the C sources.
>>     
>
> Could you elaborate a bit: what makes it hard?
>
> I assume you are talking about users that do have the sources on their
> machine, so the only problem is that the source directory is not what
> is recorded in the binary.  If so, the only problem I know of is that
> they need to type in the directory where they have the sources, only
> once per session, when Emacs prompts for it.
>   
Yes, that is correct. The problem is how they should find out that. 
Where is that information? I think that it should be there right when 
they try to access the C sources from within help. And possibly 
somewhere in the manual too.

If find-function-C-source-directory is nil then the user is prompted for 
the directory where the sources are. I think that is good, but not in 
accordance with the doc string for this var. But it is quite hard to 
find out that it is this variable you should set if you want it Emacs to 
remember where the sources are. And if you set it to something wrong 
then perhaps a hint about the var should be good?

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Richard Stallman]

    > I assume you are talking about users that do have the sources on their
    > machine, so the only problem is that the source directory is not what
    > is recorded in the binary.  If so, the only problem I know of is that
    > they need to type in the directory where they have the sources, only
    > once per session, when Emacs prompts for it.
    >   
    Yes, that is correct. The problem is how they should find out that. 
    Where is that information? I think that it should be there right when 
    they try to access the C sources from within help. And possibly 
    somewhere in the manual too.

If they didn't build Emacs from sources, but they have copied the sources,
they must have done so manually.  Emacs has no way of knowing where those
sources are.  Only the user would know.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Lennart Borgman]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     > I assume you are talking about users that do have the sources on their
>     > machine, so the only problem is that the source directory is not what
>     > is recorded in the binary.  If so, the only problem I know of is that
>     > they need to type in the directory where they have the sources, only
>     > once per session, when Emacs prompts for it.
>     >   
>     Yes, that is correct. The problem is how they should find out that. 
>     Where is that information? I think that it should be there right when 
>     they try to access the C sources from within help. And possibly 
>     somewhere in the manual too.
>
> If they didn't build Emacs from sources, but they have copied the sources,
> they must have done so manually.  Emacs has no way of knowing where those
> sources are.  Only the user would know.
>   
Oh? I thought Emacs could do anything ;-)

Sorry, I misread Eli´s answer. I mean that they have no way to find out 
that they should set find-function-C-source-directory if they want Emacs 
to know permanently where the C sources are.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

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> Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 21:07:40 +0200
> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> Cc: eliz@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Sorry, I misread Eli´s answer. I mean that they have no way to find out 
> that they should set find-function-C-source-directory if they want Emacs 
> to know permanently where the C sources are.

You mean, for the other sessions as well?  Because for this session,
Emacs remembers the place, and never prompts again.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Sorry, I misread Eli´s answer. I mean that they have no way to find out 
>> that they should set find-function-C-source-directory if they want Emacs 
>> to know permanently where the C sources are.
>>     
>
> You mean, for the other sessions as well?  Because for this session,
> Emacs remembers the place, and never prompts again.
>   
Yes, that is what I mean.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

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> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 00:20:27 +0200
> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> CC:  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> Sorry, I misread Eli´s answer. I mean that they have no way to find out 
> >> that they should set find-function-C-source-directory if they want Emacs 
> >> to know permanently where the C sources are.
> >>     
> >
> > You mean, for the other sessions as well?  Because for this session,
> > Emacs remembers the place, and never prompts again.
> >   
> Yes, that is what I mean.

Do we have a reason to believe that the sources will be in the same
place for the next session?  My Emacs sessions end only when the
system goes down (which happens once in a blue moon).  If the user
brings the sources from outside, she might as well change the location
in between.

Re: find-function-C-source-directory

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Do we have a reason to believe that the sources will be in the same
> place for the next session?  My Emacs sessions end only when the
> system goes down (which happens once in a blue moon).  If the user
> brings the sources from outside, she might as well change the location
> in between.
>   
On some OS:es you have to reboot sometimes. Upgrading, security fixes ...

But there is another difficulty too. If the user happens to give the 
wrong answer when prompting for the directory then it is hard to find 
out how to change it. Maybe there should be a simple sanity check? This 
could be at the prompting or (better I believe) when trying to access 
the sources. Then a new prompt could be issued.