Subject: Re: bug#50959: 28.0.50; Shorthand symbols are unknown to Emacs

From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2021 12:02:30 +0100

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Loading the new sl.el confirmed that Emacs didn't recognise the
>> shorthand symbols generally.
>
> João, if this problem still exists after your changes yesterday, could
> you please look into it?  TIA.

It's not after my changes from yesterday, no.  This is by design.  Emacs
doesn't recognize the shorthands symbols generally (if "generally" is to
mean "globally") because shorthands _don't_ exist in the global obarray.
They exist in the buffer.  I'm going to type in the relevant part of my
reply to Phil in emacs-devel, when complaining about C-h o not finding
his shorthand.

    That's only when the user types that in the minibuffer and doesn't
    associate [it] in any way to the buffer where [the user] sets up
    that particular shorthand (remember, shorthands aren't global:
    that's the point).  Much like if I type 'import foo as bar' in my
    Python of JavaScript program and then go search [globally, on the
    internet] for 'bar' I don't get the results for 'foo'.
     
    But (have you seen the animated gif?)  if you type 'C-h o' with point ON
    TOP OF 's-foo', then M-x describe-symbol will be prepolulated with
    string-library-foo, and need only type RET.

In other words, Phil, if you wish me to do anything about this bug, you
must explain exactly what you are doing and what you expect.  What does
it mean precisely for "Emacs to recognise the shorthand symbols
generally".  Currently it "recognizes" them when the buffer where they
are setup is current.

João