documentation of `buffer-list' misleading

documentation of `buffer-list' misleading

[Matt Swift]

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Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
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In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.0.2195)
 of 2002-03-19 on buffy
configured using `configure --with-msvc (12.00)'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: ENU
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

The documentation of `buffer-list' in the docstring and the elisp manual v2.7
suggests that the following form in an interactive Lisp session
should always evaluate to t, but in fact it is usually not t:

(equal 
 (frame-parameter nil 'buffer-list)
 (buffer-list (selected-frame)))
 
 => nil

To make the apparent paradox clearer, one could write the equivalent form:

(equal 
 (frame-parameter (selected-frame) 'buffer-list)
 (buffer-list (selected-frame)))
 
 => nil

Looking at the source in buffer.c, I see that `(buffer-list my-frame)' is
returning a list of *all* buffers (that is, the same ones as `(buffer-list
nil)' returns) in the order that `other-buffer' is going to examine them when
my-frame is the selected frame.

Having the name of the function `buffer-list' seem associated with
`other-buffer' and not with the related but different frame parameter would be
ideal, in my opinion, but I realize that changing the names now would probably
cause more problems than it resolves.  Clearer documentation would suffice.

Recent input:
C-n C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-h i M-< t M-s b u f f e r 
- l i s t <return> <tab> C-a C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-p M-x 
r e p o r t - e m a c s - b u g <return>

Recent messages:
Searching subfile elisp-19...
Searching subfile elisp-20...
Searching subfile elisp-21...
Searching subfile elisp-22...
Searching subfile elisp-23...
Searching subfile elisp-24...
Searching subfile elisp-25...
Searching subfile elisp-26...

Loading emacsbug...done

Re: documentation of `buffer-list' misleading

[Richard Stallman]

I will fix this--thanks.