Re: Warnings about keymaps

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

>> The bug can be seen more directly by byte-compiling the file below:
>> 
>> (defconst foo nil)
>> (defvar foo nil)
>> 
>> Looks like the "assignment-to-constant" warning should be more
>> careful to distinguish defvar from setq.

> This seems a fairly nonsensical thing to do, so why shouldn't the
> compiler warn about it?

It could, but it shouldn't complain about assignment to a constant,
since the defvar will not perform any assignment.  I.e. maybe a warning
is OK, but not the warning we currently get.

> The defvar is a best a no-op, at worst a bug
> (if you were expecting it to have an effect).

In the OP's case the defvar was expected to have as effect to "provide
a default value to the var in case it's not defined elsewhere".  So it
seems to behave as expected (it's a no-op since the var is defined
elsewhere).


        Stefan