bug#16792: 24.3.50; wish: following a variable name should show the value from initial buffer

bug#16792: 24.3.50; wish: following a variable name should show the value from initial buffer

[Nicolas Richard]

Hello,

Consider the following~:

(with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create "foo")
  ;; change a variable locally
  (setq-local beginning-of-defun-function #'beginning-of-line)
  ;; describe a function that references the above variable
  (describe-function 'beginning-of-defun)
  (switch-to-buffer "*Help*")
  ;; go to the reference and follow it
  (search-forward "beginning-of-defun-functio")
  (execute-kbd-macro (kbd "RET")))

The second line is:
: Its value is nil

I somewhat expected to see:
: Its value is beginning-of-line
: Local in buffer foo; global value is nil

If the old buffer is killed before following the reference, I guess I'd
like to be warned about it and see the global value instead.

What do you think ?

-- 
Nico.

bug#16792: 24.3.50; wish: following a variable name should show the value from initial buffer

[Stefan Monnier]

So you're saying that describe-function should remember in which buffer
it was invoked, in case we use describe-variable from the resulting
*Help* buffer.

It's not a terribly bad idea, but to the extent that functions can't be
buffer-local, it'd be an ad-hoc hack.  It wouldn't be the first ad-hoc
hack by the long shot, but I'm not sure I'd like to add this one.


        Stefan

bug#16792: 24.3.50; wish: following a variable name should show the value from initial buffer

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> It's not a terribly bad idea, but to the extent that functions can't be
> buffer-local, it'd be an ad-hoc hack.  It wouldn't be the first ad-hoc
> hack by the long shot, but I'm not sure I'd like to add this one.

No, it sounds somewhat confusing, so I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no