Subject: bug#76687: global-hi-lock-mode prompts on its own help

From: Daniel Colascione <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2025 12:21:40 -0500

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> From: Daniel Colascione <[email-masked]>
>> Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:49:15 -0500
>> 
>> >From emacs -Q, M-x global-hi-lock-mode, then C-h m, then quit the help
>> buffer, and type C-h m again.  You'll get prompted about whether you
>> want to apply the hi-lock patterns in the help buffer.  And then,
>> because for some reason we don't actually clear the help buffer but just
>> narrow it to what we want, the next time you ask for help, even on
>> something unrelated to hi-lock (e.g. progn), hi-lock will ask you
>> whether you want to apply hi-lock patterns.
>
> That's the default of hi-lock-file-patterns-policy, no?  IIUC, hi-lock
> asks this question for every file you visit, if it finds the patterns
> there.
>
> Or what am I missing?

Hi-lock is asking to apply patterns in the help buffer because it's
matching its own example patterns, not patterns any user meant to
actually apply.

  When hi-lock is started and if the mode is not excluded or patterns
  rejected, the beginning of the buffer is searched for lines of the
  form:
    Hi-lock: (FOO ...)

It's not helpful to prompt the user in this case, especially not for
help invocations unrelated to hi-lock.