Subject: 24.3; format-mode-line failing with :eval form via a variable in a conditional construct

From: Phil Sainty <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 17:11:57 +1200

From emacs -Q the following returns an empty string, which seems
like a bug:

ELISP> (setq indirect-eval '(:eval "indirect eval"))
ELISP> (format-mode-line '(t indirect-eval "else"))
""

Other tests have worked as expected:

ELISP> (format-mode-line '(t "then" "else"))
"then"

ELISP> (setq indirect-string "indirect string")
ELISP> (format-mode-line '(t indirect-string "else"))
"indirect string"

ELISP> (format-mode-line '(:eval "direct eval"))
"direct eval"

ELISP> (format-mode-line '(t (:eval "direct eval") "else"))
"direct eval"

ELISP> (setq indirect-eval '(:eval "indirect eval"))
ELISP> (format-mode-line indirect-eval)
"indirect eval"

It just seems to be the combination of the (:eval) form as the value
of a variable in a conditional form which is failing.

And a related question, if I may: Other than wrapping advice around
format-mode-line to let-bind a variable, is there any way for me to
ascertain whether a mode line construct is being processed for an
actual mode line redraw (in which case format-mode-line is not called),
as opposed to some other situation (e.g. describe-mode) in which
format-mode-line will be used?

My goal is to use the conditional construct to display the original
value when calling format-mode-line, but an alternative value in the
mode line itself, with the two values being stored in buffer local
variables. At the moment I'm using advice to supply the condition
(and of course I found the above bug when testing that my code worked
for the different types of construct).

thanks,
-Phil

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10)
  of 2013-06-23 on xerxes
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