Bug report: org-get-property-block returns nil if the entry does not start with the property drawer

Bug report: org-get-property-block returns nil if the entry does not start with the property drawer

[Jorge Morais]

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In Org mode's info, I could not find any requirement that the property
drawer must be the first thing in the entry.  However, this is the case in
recent versions of Org.  Things work OK in the following version:
Org-mode version 8.2.10 (8.2.10-42-g2e1bc4-elpa @
/home/jorge/.emacs.d/elpa/org-20150727/)
but things fail in recent versions, particularly 2015-08-24 (which I
uninstalled because it kept pestering me about many supposed "malformed
drawer"s because of this bug).

If have created a small file that reproduces this bug, and attached it to
this email.  In this file,
with old Org and point at the beginning of the drawer,
org-get-property-block returns
(33 . 52).
New Org returns nil.

This is Emacs 24.5 compiled from sources in Ubuntu 15.04.

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* Dummy
  Dummy.
  :PROPERTIES:
  :LOCATION: Earth
  :END:

Re: Bug report: org-get-property-block returns nil if the entry does not start with the property drawer

[Josiah Schwab]

Hello Jorge,

> In Org mode's info, I could not find any requirement that the property
> drawer must be the first thing in the entry.

This is the first item in the 8.3 series changelog.  There is a provided
script to repair things.

  http://orgmode.org/Changes.html

Hope that helps,
Josiah

Re: Bug report: org-get-property-block returns nil if the entry does not start with the property drawer

[Jorge]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 7:22 PM, Josiah Schwab <jschwab@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is the first item in the 8.3 series changelog.  There is a provided
> script to repair things.

Now I see that this new requirement is documented in Info manual
subsection 7.1 Property syntax.  I had only checked subsection 2.8
Drawers.

I didn't see the changelog because I updated through Emacs' package
menu, and I intended to update frequently (including between formal
releases), so I wouldn't check the changelog.  I now realize that
skipping the changelog is barely acceptable when you just want to use
the software, but is unacceptable when you want to report regressions.

Still, Org itself should interactively mention this change (pointing
either to manual subsection 7.1 or to orgmode.org/Changes.html)
instead of just cryptically saying "malformed drawer found".  This
slight increase in verbosity would help users like me and I don't see
any significant downside.

And please forgive any English mistake, I am Brazilian.