Subject: 28.0.90; Undocumented generalized variables

From: Phil Sainty <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2021 14:25:54 +1300

Many standard generalized variables are not listed in the manual at
(info "(elisp)Setting Generalized Variables") or otherwise documented
as generalized vars so far as I can see.

The omission of `buffer-local-value' was what led me to check these,
as it's utilised by the likes of `electric-indent-local-mode' for
the :variable declaration, which I found confusing until I'd looked
at the code in detail, seen that `setf' was being used on that form,
and found that gv.el did indeed define this as a generalized var
even though the docs didn't mention it.

Comparing the manual node with the contents of gv.el...

In 27.2 there are fairly few omissions from the manual:

- buffer-local-value
- char-table-range
- cond
- cons
- edebug-after
- if
- let
- let*
- logand
- progn

In 28.0.90 the list is huge:

- buffer-file-name
- buffer-local-value
- buffer-modified-p
- buffer-name
- buffer-string
- buffer-substring
- char-table-range
- cond
- cons
- current-buffer
- current-column
- current-global-map
- current-input-mode
- current-local-map
- current-window-configuration
- default-file-modes
- documentation-property
- edebug-after
- eq
- error
- face-background
- face-background-pixmap
- face-font
- face-foreground
- face-underline-p
- file-modes
- frame-height
- frame-parameters
- frame-visible-p
- frame-width
- get-register
- getenv
- global-key-binding
- gv-deref
- if
- let
- let*
- local-key-binding
- logand
- mark
- mark-marker
- marker-position
- mouse-position
- plist-get
- point
- point-marker
- point-max
- point-min
- progn
- read-mouse-position
- screen-height
- screen-width
- selected-frame
- selected-screen
- selected-window
- standard-case-table
- substring
- syntax-table
- visited-file-modtime
- window-height
- window-width
- x-get-secondary-selection

This list of omissions is close to twice the length of the *documented*
cases.

I think the manual should list these, but also at this point I think the
help for any generalized variable should *automatically* state that 
fact,
so that any future omissions are still covered to some extent, and also
so that non-standard generalized vars defined by other libraries will
have some documentation.

-Phil

In GNU Emacs 28.0.90 (build 3, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, cairo 
version 1.15.10, Xaw scroll bars)
  of 2021-12-03 built on phil-lp
Repository revision: 292ae07e7150a9515b587bd98f9e93ab42c3fb29
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 
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