Subject: 23.0.60; Doc string of region-active-p considered unhelpful

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:42:28 +0200

Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
usually do not have translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the [email-masked] mailing list.

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

"C-h f region-active-p RET" produces the following documentation:

  Return t if Transient Mark mode is enabled and the mark is active.
  This is NOT the best function to use to test whether a command should
  operate on the region instead of the usual behavior -- for that,
  use `use-region-p'.

This is not really helpful: it does not tell why would a Lisp program
want to use this function.  Are there any circumstances where this
function is useful, or do we keep it for compatibility reasons?

If Emacs crashed, and you have the Emacs process in the gdb debugger,
please include the output from the following gdb commands:
    `bt full' and `xbacktrace'.
If you would like to further debug the crash, please read the file
d:/gnu/emacs/etc/DEBUG for instructions.

In GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2008-10-16 on HOME-C4E4A596F7
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4)'

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: ENU
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: cp1255
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Emacs-Lisp

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> C-h f r <backspace> u e <backspace> s e 
- r e g <tab> <return> C-x o <down> <left> <left> <left> 
<left> <left> <left> <left> <return> <next> <up> <next> 
<prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> <next> <next> <next> 
<down> <down> <down> <C-right> <right> C-s C-w C-w 
C-w C-s C-s C-r C-r C-r <up> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> C-x C-f a l l <tab> <return> 
C-s u s e - r e g <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> 
C-x C-f <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> - 2 2 <tab> - <tab> e m <tab> 
/ l i s <tab> / a l l <tab> <return> C-s m a r k - 
a <up> C-x b s i m p <tab> <return> <next> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> M-x r e p o r t - e <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
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