Re: locate-file in Emacs

[Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@arsdigita.com>]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

> I'm not saying that we already have this functionality (I didn't
> check that), but I thought I'd mention similar functionality:
>
>   - executable-find in executable.el
>
>   - find-lisp.el

Yes, `locate-file' may be seen as a generalization of these, also
useful in other contexts.  (E.g. finding data files, java classes,
whatever.)

>   - the openp function (implemented in C) which can be used as a
>     base for either a C primitive or a Lisp function (it is
>     currently used by `load').

locate-file is used internally by XEmacs in ways similar to openp, but
I think the interface is nice, regardless of how it is implemented.
For instance, if you think the Lisp version is slow, or requires
caching, etc., that can be added without breaking the interface.