Re: Printing \\= in the docstring

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:32:36 +0000 Heime <heimeborgia@protonmail.com> wrote:

> Sent with Proton Mail secure email.
>
> On Tuesday, July 16th, 2024 at 8:25 PM, Stephen Berman
> <stephen.berman@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:20:05 +0000 Heime heimeborgia@protonmail.com wrote:
>>
>> > On Tuesday, July 16th, 2024 at 11:10 AM, Stephen Berman
>> > stephen.berman@gmx.net wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 22:43:26 +0000 Heime heimeborgia@protonmail.com wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > On Tuesday, July 16th, 2024 at 9:22 AM, Heime
>> > > > heimeborgia@protonmail.com wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > How can I print \\= in the docstring ?
>> > > >
>> > > > When I try \\= the = does not display. Neither does \\\\= or \\\=
>> > >
>> > > To print the sequence "\\=" as a string but not as a doc string escape
>> > > sequence, using "\\\\=" does work. But if you want to print it in the
>> > > context of a doc string escape sequence, you have to double it, just
>> > > like you have to double "\" in normal Lisp strings. For example, this
>> > > in a doc string:
>> > >
>> > > "\\\\=\\=\\=`\\\\\\\\(\\\\\\\\s-\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\=\\\\\\\\=\\\\\\\\=\\\\\\\\[\\\\\\\\-\\\\\\\\]\\\\\\\\s-\\\\\\\\)\\\\\\\\(.*\\\\\\\\)
>> > > uses \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\=" appears like this in a "*Help*" buffer:
>> > > \\\\\\\\=`\(\s-\\=\[\-\]\s-\)\(.*\) uses \\=
>> > >
>> > > Steve Berman
>> >
>> > If I use "\\\\=" the only thing that is displayed is "\" when using "C-h v
>> > myvar".
>>
>>
>> It works in the example I gave just above. As so often you have not
>> provided a complete reproducer, so I can only try to guess why what you
>> did does not work. But I won't guess now.
>>
>> Steve Berman
>
> (defconst mydocstring ""
>
>   "In the docstring, apply the escape sequence \\\\= to stop conversion by
>   `substitute-command-keys'."

Thank you, now I can reproduce the problem.  From brief testing it seems
"\\\\=" in a doc string only prints as "\\=" when it is the final
character sequence in the doc string.  This could be a bug but I don't
have time to debug it now.  However, escaping "\\=" as above does work:

(defvar mydocstring ""

  "In the docstring, apply the escape sequence \\\\=\\=\\= to stop
conversion by `substitute-command-keys'.")

So I guess the recommendation is to always use this if you want to see
"\\=" in a *Help* buffer.

Steve Berman