Subject: Re: bug#41006: 26.3; regular expressions documentation

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2022 14:22:36 +0200

jan <[email-masked]> writes:

> 1. Suggest emacs' excellent documentation should not distinguish between
> Regexps and Regexp Backslash in the manual.
> That is, these 2 should be combined:
>
>   * Regexps::                   Syntax of regular expressions.
>   * Regexp Backslash::          Regular expression constructs starting with ‘\’.
>
> AFAICS the difference is purely arbitrary.
> There have been times I've looked for the syntax for such syntax and
> found it only because I knew it was there, but not in the same
> section. A beginner might conclude emacs doesn't support them.

(I'm going through old bug reports that unfortunately weren't resolved
at the time.)

Skimming this bug thread and the two nodes in the Emacs user manual, I
don't really see much to improve here.  The Emacs user manual is there
for users to read to introduce them to concepts and guide them -- it's
not a reference manual to look up things like this.  Reading those two
chapters, it seems like they do that quite well.

So I don't think we want to rearrange these chapters, and I'm therefore
closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no