Subject: Re: bug#23425: master branch: `message' wrongly corrupts ' to curly quote.

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2017 16:26:12 -0700

On 05/31/2017 02:24 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> This bug has not been fixed.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your earlier comments. I reopened the bug.

> The only documentation for this feature is obscure and hidden.  There
> is nothing in `message''s doc string which explicitly states likely
> unwanted replacement of characters takes place; just a puzzling
> "exception proves the rule" paragraph.
I installed the attached patch into master, which I hope makes that doc 
string sufficiently clear. I'd rather not change the Emacs default 
behavior, though, for reasons already discussed.

>From 74908f08ab6a77311e4e3c688fcd354e8beb8d97 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2017 16:22:24 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] * src/editfns.c (Fmessage): Improve doc string
 (Bug#23425#130).

---
 src/editfns.c | 9 ++++-----
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/editfns.c b/src/editfns.c
index a51670c..89a6724 100644
--- a/src/editfns.c
+++ b/src/editfns.c
@@ -3734,11 +3734,10 @@ In batch mode, the message is printed to the standard error stream,
 followed by a newline.
 
 The first argument is a format control string, and the rest are data
-to be formatted under control of the string.  See `format-message' for
-details.
-
-Note: (message "%s" VALUE) displays the string VALUE without
-interpreting format characters like `%', `\\=`', and `\\=''.
+to be formatted under control of the string.  Percent sign (%), grave
+accent (\\=`) and apostrophe (\\=') are special in the format; see
+`format-message' for details.  To display STRING without special
+treatment, use (message "%s" STRING).
 
 If the first argument is nil or the empty string, the function clears
 any existing message; this lets the minibuffer contents show.  See
-- 
2.9.4