Re: feature that was needed for read-symbol-shorthands

["João Távora" <joaotavora@gmail.com>]

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On Sat, Dec 2, 2023, 03:19 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

When the shorthands feasture was installed, I found that another
> feature was needed: a way to explicitly load a specified file, and
> specify an added shorthands list for the contents of that file, to be
> used in addition to what the file itself specifies.
>
> Did that ever get implemented?


I don't think so, no.

  Is there a way to do it now?
>

Maybe. Have you thought about practical consequences? The file would no
longer be the single source of truth as to what symbols are interned when
it is read.

For example, visiting such a file after having it loaded like that would
lead to surprising behavior for many features (help buffers, eldoc, etc).
And it would become impossible to analyze the file without loading it or
guessing how it is meant to be loaded.

What about compiled files? Would you do shorthand substitution at
elc-loading time? It's not read-time anymore.

For these reasons I recommend against doing this.

João

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