Re: hash-table-{to, from}-alist

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> everyone.  I changed it to #s(hash-table ...) as discussed.

Good, thanks.

SM> The same way as the other circularities.  I.e. it should mostly
SM> "just work", except you'll have to change the code that does the
SM> first pass so that it doesn't skip hash tables.
> Sorry, I don't know what you mean.  My iterator doesn't skip hash
> tables, does it?  Or are you discussing something else?

The print code does 2 passes over the data: a first one to collect the
set of objects it's going to print, and a second to do the actual print.
This 2-pass approach is done to handle cycles and sharing (so that when
an object appears several times in the output, we know it right when we
print the first occurrence).  IIUC your patch only patches the second
pass, but not the first.

> IMHO hashtables should always be printed completely and should be
> treated like lists and vectors.  If, however, compatibility with
> XEmacs is desired or people feel strongly for print-readably, I will
> implement with print-readably.

char tables are always printed in full and we haven't had any complaints
about that, so you're probably right: let's just always print them
in full.  If it turns out to be problematic in some cases, we can later
on add some extra variable to control the level of detail.


        Stefan