Re: Obtaining a database of new functionality per Emacs version

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2020 13:23:29 +0100
> From: Vasilij Schneidermann <mail@vasilij.de>
> 
> - Relying on metadata from custom.el: Works on customizables only.
> - Combing through NEWS files: Not machine-readable, tedious, prone to
>   mistakes (not all new functionality is marked as such, for example
>   there's renames like `with-connection-local-profiles` to
>   `with-connection-local-variables`).

Renames without leaving an alias behind can only be legitimately done
if the original variable was not yet released in any version;
otherwise it's a bug that should be reported and fixed ASAP.

> - Combing through CHANGELOG: Not machine-readable either, tedious, not
>   cleanly separated by versions, seemingly the wrong data source to
>   consult.
> - Launching an Emacs process, loading up all functionality, dumping all
>   symbols, diffing against the output of an Emacs process of an older
>   version, filtering out symbols introduced by our own code: This might
>   just work (loading up functionality has side effects), but surely
>   there's a better way, right?
> 
> Anything obvious I'm overlooking?

Did you try "make TAGS" in the top-level directory, followed by
searching the TAGS files?

> Should there perhaps be an effort towards documenting versioned
> public API?

Manually or automatically?  If manually, the result will be as
accurate and comprehensive as NEWS.  If automatically, please tell
what kind of implementation you have in mind.