Subject: Re: bug#20759: 25.0.50; pcase doc: (‘ QPAT) instead of (` QPAT)

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:20:35 +0200

Paul Eggert <[email-masked]> writes:

> As the patch mentions, I'm puzzled about the syntax ‘(` PAT)’ in the
> docstring, since lread.c says that syntax is obsolete and ‘format’
> quotes the grave accent.  The attached patch causes C-h f to suggest
> the syntax ‘(\` PAT)’ which is "safer" in some sense, I suppose.  If
> it's intended that pcase usage omit the backslash, then I guess that
> ‘format’ and/or lread.c need to be updated accordingly.

Thanks for working on that.

Thinking again about this, maybe `PAT would be didactically better, in
this special case of the pcase doc.  People not being aware of backquote
being a reader macro should not think

   (pcase '(1 2) ((\` (1 2)) t))

is the "correct" way to use this (instead of

   (pcase '(1 2) (`(1 2) t))

).

I know that the doc of pcase is generated automatically, and your
(Paul's) patch makes this more consistent.

OTOH, we write 'VAL and not (\' VAL) some lines above in the same
documentation.

Regards,

Michael.