From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Why "symbol's value" error about a list? Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:06:39 -0500 Message-ID: References: <83o9l6bhfs.fsf@gnu.org> <1fedc60d-35a7-4ff0-adbb-b6b8306d192f@default> <83wozu9f6r.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1517792770 9114 195.159.176.226 (5 Feb 2018 01:06:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 01:06:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: npostavs@users.sourceforge.net, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Feb 05 02:06:05 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVE7-0000iM-IU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 05 Feb 2018 02:05:43 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33729 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVG8-0005Pt-Os for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:07:48 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37858) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVF7-0005Oo-Un for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:06:47 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVF6-0008S0-Th for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:06:45 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:36276) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVF2-0008MF-Ib; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:06:40 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1eiVF1-0002kv-Pt; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 20:06:39 -0500 In-reply-to: <83wozu9f6r.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Eli Zaretskii on Sat, 03 Feb 2018 19:05:32 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:222532 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > For example, suppose you have a Lisp program that produces the > following error message when compiled/executed: > Symbol's value as variable is void: 'аbbrevs-changed Does that error message really happen? If so, how can I reproduce it? I understand that the character 'а' is not ASCII a. That explains why 'аbbrevs-changed' is not known as a variable. But I'm talking about a different issue, which has nothing to do with character coding. Suppose it were 'foobaz', all ASCII, and we got an error such as > Symbol's value as variable is void: 'foobaz That still seems wrong. If the error was that foobaz was void, the error message should not include a quote. It should say > Symbol's value as variable is void: foobaz Or if the error was that 'foobaz is used instead of a symbol, the error message should say > Wrong type argument: symbolp, (quote foobaz) -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.