From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: RE: wrong-type-argument listp \.\.\. Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:43:55 -0700 Message-ID: <7D852D0B581C4D0D980FFF6B1D6A6964@us.oracle.com> References: <87lj9xsdrx.fsf@gmx.ch> <87k4phla01.fsf@rub.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1277855134 27707 80.91.229.12 (29 Jun 2010 23:45:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:45:34 +0000 (UTC) To: "'Sven Bretfeld'" , Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jun 30 01:45:31 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OTkUc-0006z9-N2 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:45:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:43810 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OTkUb-00005y-RG for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:45:29 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=45546 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OTkU6-00005j-59 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:44:59 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OTkU4-0004Me-GL for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:44:58 -0400 Original-Received: from rcsinet10.oracle.com ([148.87.113.121]:23047) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OTkU4-0004MX-Aq for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:44:56 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com (acsinet15.oracle.com [141.146.126.227]) by rcsinet10.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.2) with ESMTP id o5TNiqsc015447 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:44:54 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt354.oracle.com (acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.1) with ESMTP id o5THiQDh007553; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:44:50 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt017.oracle.com by acsmt354.oracle.com with ESMTP id 367811831277855031; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:43:51 -0700 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/141.144.72.86) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:43:51 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: <87k4phla01.fsf@rub.de> Thread-Index: AcsX3xbtvmzDWxMdQ1yikXm+GmXqsgAAtaiw X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5931 X-Source-IP: acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154] X-Auth-Type: Internal IP X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090207.4C2A8573.0133:SCFMA4539814,ss=1,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:74019 Archived-At: > > To make sense of a debugger backtrace, first load the Lisp > > source files that are concerned (e.g. newsticker.el), not > > the byte-compiled files (e.g. newsticker.elc). > > > > The error message is saying that function > > newsticker--stat-num-items expected a list argument (i.e. > > nil or a cons), but it instead was passed a symbol whose > > name is "...". > > To be exact, the same message also occurs with some other operations, > for example org-mobile-push. So I don't think it's an error > connected to newsticker.el. Something more general must be wrong. > And I can't find it. In that case, you need to use a binary search, to narrow things down. Split your .emacs or your `custom-file' in half by commenting out half. or just `eval-region' of half. or some such. That makes your problem half as big. Repeat (half of half; half of half of half; etc.). It's very quick. The alternative is what you're doing now: trying to shake everything together in a giant sack and divine what the culprit might be. Narrow it down, and the culprit will stand out. > Is there really a symbol called "..."? Well, you can see that yourself from the call `car(\.\.\.)' in your backtrace. The backtrace shows `mapcar' applying `car' to a list whose last item is the symbol `...' (not a list): > mapcar(car (("~/aktuell/myconf/from-mobile.org" > "cd2fdb6d-1ca6-45e7-b0d6-02044edcbbb9") ... > ("~/aktuell/myconf/mygtd.org" > "c76519fa-c2ba-434c-b3e2-e3838b72e6e3") \.\.\.)) --this list item is a symbol, not a list-----^ Look at the code that creates the list in question. In this case, the list is `org-id-locations': `(mapcar (quote car) org-id-locations))' But _start_ by narrowing things down. Throw out org, newsticker etc., until you know just what is causing the problem. Split the unknown by half N times and it becomes a tiny unknown. And, as I suggested, check to see if some common data file is used, which might be corrupted. If those programs all share a common data file, that could be the culprit. This smells of something like a corrupted desktop, session, or save-history file. It would be sufficient for some program to incorrectly save data to such a file. >From then on, other code would be reading crap from the file and trying to make sense of it. The other thing that suggests this is that you are (presumably) using the same source code on different platforms. But you might well be using different data (e.g. history) files... See what I wrote before (at the end). > Can it be an encoding problem? I know nothing about encoding; sorry. Don't guess blindly; narrow it down systematically. Binary search is _very_ rapid. > Below is a debug output of org-mobile-push. > > Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument listp \.\.\.) > car(\.\.\.) > mapcar(car (("~/aktuell/myconf/from-mobile.org" > "cd2fdb6d-1ca6-45e7-b0d6-02044edcbbb9") > ("~/aktuell/myconf/from-mobile.org" > "fdcc85e2-51c8-4d3d-827c-396687ca5a13") ... > ("~/aktuell/myconf/mygtd.org" > "f20acbfb-c03c-4b08-bd22-d1b614dc7688") > ("~/aktuell/myconf/mygtd.org" > "c76519fa-c2ba-434c-b3e2-e3838b72e6e3") \.\.\.)) > (setq org-id-files (mapcar (quote car) org-id-locations)) Did you do the following? > > Be sure you have the same source code on the various > > platforms, for the files in question. If newsticker uses > > some other file (e.g. a data file), then make sure > > that file is also the same across platforms.