On Sun, Jan 09, 2022 at 05:37:49PM +0100, fatiparty--- via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor wrote:

[...]

> I have difficulty about the utility of 'provide'.  You have pointed out that (provide 'daph)
> simply announces that daph is a feature of the current emacs.  Can it be any name?  The 
> manual states that "calling 'provide' adds 'feature' tothe front of 'features' if it is not already
>  in that list".  This suggests that provide should also use  (provide 'daph-ideograms).  

That depends on how you want to call your feature. Note that once a
feature is `provide'd, a `require' of that feature does nothing. Quoting
from the docs:

  require is a built-in function in ‘C source code’.

  (require FEATURE &optional FILENAME NOERROR)

  If feature FEATURE is not loaded, load it from FILENAME.
  If FEATURE is not a member of the list ‘features’, then the
  feature is not loaded; so load the file FILENAME.

> I guess that one could define the feature as 'daph' when using 'provide'.  And use the feature 'daph'
> when calling 'require'.  In this way, the 'daph' will be recognise the 'daph' feature in the features variable,
> but use the optional filename "daph-ideograms"

Yes, that'd be a way to do it (in theory you could have one file
providing several features, for example).

> Thus
> 
> daph-ideograms.el
> **********************
>   (provide 'daph)
> 
> test.el
> ******* 
>   (add-to-list
>       'load-path "~/Admin/bin/gadi-1.0/typex/ziggurat-protowrit/daph-ideograms")
>    ;; Load the Daph Package if it has not already been loaded.
>    (require 'daph "daph-ideograms")
> 
> --------
> 
> My load path is quite long, and wonder how this can be shortened by storing in some other variable
> before passing to 'add-to-list'.

I don't quite understand your last sentence. What is it you are trying
to shorten -- and how?

Cheers
-- 
t