display-buffer specification error

display-buffer specification error

[martin rudalics]

`display-buffer' currently has the following specification error: Its
doc-string says that "BUFFER-OR-NAME must be a buffer or the name of an
existing buffer."  This is also the behavior implemented by Emacs 23.

But `display-buffer' calls `window-normalize-buffer-to-display' whose
doc-string says that "If BUFFER-OR-NAME is nil, return the current
buffer.  Else, if a buffer specified by BUFFER-OR-NAME exists, return
that buffer.  If no such buffer exists, create a buffer with the name
BUFFER-OR-NAME and return that buffer."  So the behavior of Emacs 24
diverges from that of Emacs 23 when BUFFER-OR-NAME is nil or names a
non-existent buffer.

Which is the behavior we prefer for Emacs 24?

martin

Re: display-buffer specification error

[Stefan Monnier]

> Which is the behavior we prefer for Emacs 24?

The Emacs-23 behavior seems more restrictive and this restrictiveness
hasn't proved to be annoying, so I think it's preferable (I wish we
could make it even more restrictive and remove this "-or-name" behavior).


        Stefan

Re: display-buffer specification error

[martin rudalics]

 > The Emacs-23 behavior seems more restrictive and this restrictiveness
 > hasn't proved to be annoying, so I think it's preferable

Done.

 > (I wish we
 > could make it even more restrictive and remove this "-or-name" behavior).

Unfortunately, there are too many applications passing a string here.

martin