Subject: Re: bug#25122: 24.5; function describe-variable hangs on large variables

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2017 16:59:05 -0500

Thierry Volpiatto <[email-masked]> writes:

> Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> I think the better way out is to do less work.  E.g. bound the total
>> amount printed (and replace the rest with "..." that can be expanded on
>> demand).

Yes, there's no method that will achieve "instant" speeds for
load-history sized lists (well except for plain prin1, but that output
is hardly readable).

> The problem will be here again when you hit RET on "..." 

Perhaps we could run the printing in a thread and suspend it after
printing X lines.  Then hitting RET on "..." would just print another X
lines.