Re: Unmentioned "stringify" aspect in docu buffer-substring-no-properties

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Andreas Roehler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

> Richard Stallman schrieb:
>> Would people please check those files for accuracy one more time?
>> They are the files listed in FOR-RELEASE with just one name.
>
>> text.texi
> IMO:
> Unmentioned "stringify" aspect in
> `buffer-substring-no-properties'; also concerns
> `buffer-substring'
>
> AFAIU there are two different meanings of string, which
> are mixed up in naming and function of
>
> `buffer-substring-no-properties':
>
> 1) it takes a portion of the buffer, but not necessary
>  of a type `string', so `substring' might mislead
>  here (nonetheless, would not ask for changing this
>  name for compatiblity reasons)

Uh what?  Of course the type is `string'.

> 2) it stringifies these portion, changes the type of it

It does nothing of the sort.

> ;;; check the following examples in a buffer starting
>   with it, in order to have the Start-End-Entries
>   set as given
>
> (defun foo ()
> " "
> (interactive "*")
> )
>
> (buffer-substring-no-properties 34 37)"e \""

There is no "stringification" done by buffer-substring-no-properties.
The Lisp reader prints the result of the evaluation in string syntax,
that is all.

> It happened to be a discussion in de.comp.editoren,
> concerning a stringify function
>
> The (still disputed) result exploits just the
> mentioned quality.

It doesn't.

> (defun region2string (start end)
> "Make a string from the chars of a region.
> Doublequotes inside will be quoted therefor.
>
> baz --> \"baz\"
>
> baz \"bar\" --> \"baz \\\"bar\\\"\""
> (interactive "r*")
> (goto-char end)
> (prin1 (buffer-substring-no-properties start end) (current-buffer))
> (delete-region start end))

The string quotes get added by prin1, not by
buffer-substring-no-properties.  You should really try reading up some
basics in the Emacs Lisp tutorial.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum