Subject: bug#19694: 24.4; --insert command-line switch does not behave as documented

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 21:48:33 -0600

The emacs info manual states that the command-line option --insert=FILE
will "Insert the contents of FILE into the `*scratch*' buffer."
However, whether this option works as documented depends on where it
appears in the command line.  Thus:

emacs --insert=file1 file2

brings up file2 in a buffer with that name, and places the contents of
file1 in *scratch*, as documented.  But:

emacs file1 --insert=file2

which the documentation states should put file1 in a buffer with that
name and the contents of file2 in *scratch*, instead brings up a buffer
with file1's name, containing the contents of file2 followed by the
contents of file1, and leaves *scratch* empty.

In GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
 of 2015-01-10 on evo
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11204000
Configured using:
 `configure --prefix=/usr --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
 --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
 --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-dependency-tracking
 --disable-silent-rules --libdir=/usr/lib --program-suffix=-emacs-24
 --infodir=/usr/share/info/emacs-24 --localstatedir=/var
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-gameuser=games --without-compress-install
 --with-file-notification=inotify --enable-acl --with-dbus
 --without-gnutls --with-gpm --without-hesiod --without-kerberos
 --without-kerberos5 --without-xml2 --without-selinux --without-wide-int
 --with-zlib --with-sound=alsa --with-x --without-ns --without-gconf
 --without-gsettings --without-toolkit-scroll-bars --with-gif
 --with-jpeg --with-png --with-rsvg --with-tiff --with-xpm
 --without-imagemagick --without-xft --without-libotf --without-m17n-flt
 --with-x-toolkit=no GENTOO_PACKAGE=app-editors/emacs-24.4-r1
 'CFLAGS=-O2 -march=native -pipe' CPPFLAGS= 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1
 -Wl,--as-needed''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_COLLATE: C
  value of $LANG: en_US
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1-unix

Major mode: Fundamental

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

Recent input:
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <escape> x r e
p o SPC r SPC SPC SPC SPC <return>

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Making completion list...

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message format-spec rfc822 mml
mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev
gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util
help-fns mail-prsvr mail-utils help-mode easymenu site-gentoo time-date
tooltip electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel
x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list
newcomment lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer
select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai
tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help
simple abbrev minibuffer nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp
files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process
dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting x multi-tty emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 8 73138 8078)
 (symbols 24 17526 0)
 (miscs 20 78 193)
 (strings 16 9187 4169)
 (string-bytes 1 255511)
 (vectors 8 9069)
 (vector-slots 4 381647 6050)
 (floats 8 66 281)
 (intervals 28 372 377)
 (buffers 512 13)
 (heap 1024 34691 462))