Subject: Re: bug#65288: 30.0.50; Make Type: annotation optional in *Help* buffers

From: Philip Kaludercic <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 13:51:26 +0000

Visuwesh <[email-masked]> writes:

> Can a user option be added to not show the "Type:" annotation in *Help*
> buffers for certain functions?  An example is `char-after'
>
>     char-after is a built-in function in ‘src/editfns.c’.
>
>     (char-after &optional POS) Type: (function (&optional (or marker
>     integer)) (or null (integer -2305843009213693952
>     2305843009213693951)))
>
>     Return character in current buffer at position POS.
>     POS is an integer or a marker and defaults to point.
>     If POS is out of range, the value is nil.
>
> If not a user option, can it be moved after the docstring?

Only functions have types, these are not the same types those given to
user options.

That being said, I agree that in cases like `char-after' the information
of a very specific type like that one is limited.  I don't know if there
is a sensible heuristic to reformat the type into something like

  (function (&optional position) (or position null))

using some kind of type aliasing, but it might be better to not
highlight the information so prominently?