Wrong file mentioned for variable definition

Wrong file mentioned for variable definition

[Eli Zaretskii]

In today's CVS on the Emacs 22 branch, "C-h v file-name-history RET"
brings this:

  file-name-history is a variable defined in `files.el'.

But in fact file-name-history is defined in fileio.c, while files.el
has only a defvar for it, presumably to avoid a warning from the byte
compiler.  I think this is a misfeature.

Re: Wrong file mentioned for variable definition

[Andreas Schwab]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> In today's CVS on the Emacs 22 branch, "C-h v file-name-history RET"
> brings this:
>
>   file-name-history is a variable defined in `files.el'.
>
> But in fact file-name-history is defined in fileio.c,

No, it isn't.  Only a pointer to the symbol is defined, not the
variable.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
PGP key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Wrong file mentioned for variable definition

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Andreas Schwab <schwab@suse.de>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:36:54 +0100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > In today's CVS on the Emacs 22 branch, "C-h v file-name-history RET"
> > brings this:
> >
> >   file-name-history is a variable defined in `files.el'.
> >
> > But in fact file-name-history is defined in fileio.c,
> 
> No, it isn't.  Only a pointer to the symbol is defined, not the
> variable.

Right you are.  Sorry for the noise.

Re: Wrong file mentioned for variable definition

[Richard Stallman]

    In today's CVS on the Emacs 22 branch, "C-h v file-name-history RET"
    brings this:

      file-name-history is a variable defined in `files.el'.

    But in fact file-name-history is defined in fileio.c, while files.el
    has only a defvar for it, presumably to avoid a warning from the byte
    compiler.

The real definition is in files.el because that's where it gets the
doc string.  fileio.c just creates the symbol and sets it to nil;
it does not define it as a variable.

So the help command is giving you correct info.

If you want to change this to do the defvar in fileio.c instead,
that is ok with me.