bug#70868: 30.0.50; pp--insert-lisp prints small integers as characters

[Michael Heerdegen via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>]

Michael Heerdegen via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife
of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:

> > Is it worth making configurable, or outright removing?
>
> We could make it configurable, but note that this will not avoid this
> kind of problem: one and the same expression can include numbers in that
> range that are "meant" as characters and others that are "meant" as
> integers.  Characters being printed as integers is likewise annoying as
> the opposite problem.
>
> Anyway, adding a user option will probably be the best solution we can
> implement.

We already have `print-integers-as-characters', though.  So if we want to
make this completely controllable on the per usage basis, removing those
lines would indeed make more sense.  Then the user could just bind
`print-integers-as-characters' as for any other printing action.


Another thought: In a lot of cases the user specifies code in an already
printed form - either at a (e.g. the M-:) prompt as a function argument,
or the code is present in a buffer or file.  And the user just wants to
have it prettified.  Then we `read' it, losing all syntactical
distinctions and redundancies, and guess what syntax might be
appropriate although we just threw that information away.

Doing it differently would mean to write something new that would
operate on strings or buffer text instead of printing expressions.
AFAIR, some the pp functions already do that but on a very simple level
(like adding newlines and indentation).


Michael.