Re: Byte compilation without writing the .elc file

[phillip.lord@russet.org.uk]

On 2019-06-23 12:53, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Often when I'm working on an out-of-tree Emacs Lisp file, I want to do
> byte compilation to see whether what I've done generates any warnings 
> --
> but I don't want the .elc file, because I want to run it from .el.
> 
> So I `M-x byte-compile-file' and then delete the .elc file.  This seems
> kinda sub-optimal, and surely others must also have this problem.
> 
> The internal `byte-compile-from-buffer' function almost does the right
> thing, but it doesn't set things up properly, so it doesn't quite work.
> 
> So I think it would be a good idea if Emacs had a command called, say,
> `byte-compile-buffer' that does the same thing as `byte-compile-file',
> but for the current buffer and without outputting anything.  Does that
> sound OK?


I think that the functionality might be good but the name might be 
confusing, since in this case, byte-compile-buffer
wouldn't do anything (except produce error messages). There is also 
"emacs-lisp-byte-compile" and
"emacs-lisp-byte-compile-and-load".

Given that, I think, it is not possible to load a byte compiled file 
that has not been saved and you do not want to
add this, why either add an option to `emacs-lisp-byte-compile' and 
`byte-compile-file'. Or alternatively, add a few
function such as `emacs-lisp-check-errors' or equivalent. I mean, in 
this case, the byte-compilation is not really
the point; it's just how you are checking the file.