symbol-file

symbol-file

[martin rudalics]

   (symbol-file 'ediff-directories 'defun)

currently returns "ediff" which contradicts the doc-string saying

   The value is an absolute file name.
   It can also be nil, if the definition is not associated with any file.

I suggest we'd either fix the doc-string appropriately or return

   (locate-file (nth 1 (symbol-function symbol)) load-path '(".el" ".elc"))

in the autoload case.

martin

Re: symbol-file

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

martin rudalics wrote:
>   (symbol-file 'ediff-directories 'defun)
> 
> currently returns "ediff" which contradicts the doc-string saying
> 
>   The value is an absolute file name.
>   It can also be nil, if the definition is not associated with any file.
> 
> I suggest we'd either fix the doc-string appropriately or return
> 
>   (locate-file (nth 1 (symbol-function symbol)) load-path '(".el" ".elc"))
> 
> in the autoload case.


I think it would be best to return the absolute file name and then have 
a separate function file-name-in-load-path that just gives for example 
"ediff.el". The second function can then be used by the help functions 
to display the file name.

Re: symbol-file

[martin rudalics]

 > I think it would be best to return the absolute file name and then have
 > a separate function file-name-in-load-path that just gives for example
 > "ediff.el". The second function can then be used by the help functions
 > to display the file name.

We could use the

   (find-function-search-for-symbol function nil "loaddefs.el")

approach and search for "^;;; Generated autoloads from \\(.*\\)" just as
`describe-function-1' does.  I'm not sure whether this would break other
applications using `symbol-file' though.  WOW, I don't know whether it's
intended to, for example, pass the result of `symbol-file' to `load' and
expect the later to DTRT with it.

BTW, you can see the current approach in action by doing

   (describe-function 'ediff-directories)

which gives

   ediff-directories is an interactive autoloaded Lisp function in `ediff'.

where `ediff' is just the "file name string" `load' would use but
certainly not a file name.

martin