GNU bug report logs - #16846
24.3.50.1; Info 48.2.4.1 Specifying File Variables

Previous Next

Full log

Message #21 received at 16846 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Juanma Barranquero <lekktu <at> gmail.com>
To: Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler <at> easy-emacs.de>
Cc: 16846 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#16846: acknowledged by developer ()
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 23:43:59 +0100

On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Andreas Röhler
<andreas.roehler <at> easy-emacs.de> wrote:

> This bug is about Info files

I don't think there is a bug. That info node talks about the format of
the file variables, but of course says nothing about the format of the
contents of your file. If your file is text, perhaps just

-*- variable: value -*-

in the first line is perfectly acceptable. If the file contains C
source code, or elisp, or another data format to be digested by some
external processor, it should already be clear that the file variables
must be acceptable to these external processors. You can't expect to
have

-*- mode: c -*-

as the first line of a C file and compile it with GCC without getting an error.

That said, the same node that you quote already says:

     Here is an example first line that specifies Lisp mode and sets two
  variables with numeric values:

       ;; -*- mode: Lisp; fill-column: 75; comment-column: 50; -*-

and a little later:

     In shell scripts, the first line is used to identify the script
  interpreter, so you cannot put any local variables there.  To
  accommodate this, Emacs looks for local variable specifications in the
  _second_ line if the first line specifies an interpreter.  The same is
  true for man pages which start with the magic string `'\"' to specify a
  list of troff preprocessors (not all do, however).

which clearly suggests that the file variables must also be acceptable
to the consumer of the file.

>, the former report was about a wrong compiler warning.

Which was, in fact, not wrong at all.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.