Subject: bug#17623: 24.4.50; incorrect example for `apply-partially' in (elisp) `Calling Functions'

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:53:34 +0200

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

> Sorry, I don't understand this critique.  Perhaps if you suggested an
> alternative wording, it would become clear what is it that confused
> you about the current text.

There's nothing wrong per see in the current text, but it sounds as if
`apply-partially` would somehow analyze the argument list of its first
argument.  But it's semantic is very simple.

Say that

  (apply-partially f arg_1 ... arg_n) 

is equivalent to

  (lambda (&rest args) (apply f arg_1 ... arg_n args))

With that, what we currently have an ok elucidation of that definition.

And I think that the paragraph about `apply-partially` should be merged
into the later text talking about functionals, because the main use case
of `apply-partially` is to construct anonymous functions for usage as
argument to some other function.

Michael.