Subject: Re: bug#16617: 24.3.50; REGRESSION: `C-q ?' pops up annoying *Char Help* buffer

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 22:24:00 +0300

> Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2014 11:38:15 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> 
> What problem did I report?  "`C-q ?' pops up an annoying
> "*Char Help*" buffer."  What part of that is not clear?

It's clear, I just don't agree that it's a problem.  It is intended
behavior shared by many other Emacs commands.

> Why should `C-q ?' show any "help"?

Because '?' is a help character.

> Why doesn't it just insert the character `?'?  `C-q w' inserts the
> character `w'.  Why should `C-q ?' act differently?

For the same reason "M-x ?" triggers a different response than "M-x w".

> The FIX for this bug is to treat `?' like the ordinary printable,
> self-inserting character that it is in such contexts: `C-q'
> should simply insert `?'.  End of story.

You can say this till Kingdom Come, it won't change the basic facts:
this is a very old feature, and I at least see no reason to remove it,
since Emacs behaves like that in many other commands.  End of story.

> > I don't know why '?' should also be excluded
> 
> It is an ordinary, printable, self-inserting character in the
> context I reported.

No, it isn't.  It is a character that invokes help.

> `C-q' is SUPPOSED to insert ordinary, self-inserting characters.

And "M-x" is supposed to echo the next word, but '?' still behaves
differently there.

Just let go, Drew.  You keep repeating the same arguments, and they
didn't fly the first time.