Strangely recognized non-lists and non-headers.

[D <d.williams@posteo.net>]

Hi all,

while debugging org-superstar-mode I noticed something very strange, and
I am not sure if it's a bug in org or a bug in my understanding of org.

First off, an MWE for Org mode version 9.1.9 (release_9.1.9-65-g5e4542):

#+BEGIN_SRC C
/*
* This is a header?
  + this
    + is
      * a list?
*/
#+END_SRC

This works. I can promote, demote, fold, etc.  org-superstar also has no
issue with accepting these.  I should add, this is the default config
(emacs -Q on Emacs 26.3).  So no spooky stuff I believe on that end.
So I began digging.

I use org-list-in-valid-context-p as a quick hack to check if what I am
looking at is actually a list.  Said predicate is a simple wrapper
around the function org-in-block-p being called with
org-list-forbidden-blocks.  It is the the list of environments where
lists are not allowed.

Value: ("example" "verse" "src" "export")

There is also a very similar variable: org-protecting-blocks.  This one
marks environments as quoted, disallowing org syntax.

Value: ("src" "example" "export")

Currently these two variables don't know of one another.  Maybe the
latter should be a strict subset of the former?

Anyway, from what I have found org-in-block-p seems to not recognize src
blocks reliably.  I wrote a small function to test this:

(defun nag ()
  (interactive)
  (when (org-list-in-valid-context-p)
    (warn "You can make a list here! :(")))

And it seems, yes, you can make a list in a src block.
That's all very peculiar, what do you guys think?