GNU bug report logs - #21391
24.5; `thing-at-point' returns error when called with arguments 'number t

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: Tino Calancha <f92capac <at> gmail.com>

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2015 01:57:01 UTC

Severity: minor

Found in version 24.5

Done: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #67 received at 21391 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov <at> yandex.ru>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, Tino Calancha <tino.calancha <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 21391 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21391: 24.5; `thing-at-point' should return a string
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 21:12:07 +0200

On 07.11.2016 17:14, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> It's natural if `thing-at-point' returns the thing as a string.
>> When the user don't want a string then s?he can use the specific
>> functions, like `number-at-point' or `list-at-point'.
>
> Isn't that completely backward-incompatible?

When thing is a number? Maybe. I don't imagine it's used very often.

> If so, I don't think we
> can do that.

It's pretty clearly a bug: most other "things" behave otherwise (list, 
sexp, symbol). I'd very much rather we didn't retain conceptual problems 
like that just for the sake of compatibility.
This bug report was last modified 4 years and 328 days ago.

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