Re: lisp-indent-function

[Andre Spiegel]

"Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden> writes:

> > From: Andre Spiegel <address@hidden>
> > Date: 23 Nov 2001 12:46:30 +0100
> > 
> > I had a very hard time finding out about `lisp-indent-function'.  I
> > did not know exactly how it is called, and how to use it.
> 
> Please tell what strings or regexps did you use to look for this.
> Knowing that will help writing the index entries.

The story is that there was a typo in vc.el; it used the non-existing
property `indent-function'.  A user reported it and told me it should
be `lisp-indent-function'.  To verify this before I actually corrected
it, I decided to have a look at the documentation.

I searched the indexes of both the Emacs and Elisp Manuals for
`indent-function'.  Nothing in Elisp; the Emacs manual had
`comment-indent-function' as the only match.  I finally found
`lisp-indent-function' by browsing around in the adjacent sections.

I also tried C-h f, which found the function with the same name, but
it has no doc string.  Looking around in lisp-mode.el gave me hardly
any clue, because it is only sparsely commented -- the header says
that the real documentation is in the Emacs manual.

It would be useful if lisp-indent-function had a doc string that
explained its relation to the property with the same name, and where
exactly the complete documentation can be found (node/index in the
manual).

> > + @vindex lisp-indent-function
> >     You can override the standard pattern in various ways for individual
> >   functions, according to the @code{lisp-indent-function} property of the
> >   function name.  There are four possibilities for this property:
> > 
> > (I'm not sure if it's correct to use `vindex' here.)
> 
> It isn't, since lisp-indent-function is a property, not a variable.

The entry for comment-indent-function, which is also a property, is
already a `vindex'.  Whatever the correct choice is, clearly both of
these properties ought to be in the same index.

> However, I wonder: the section where you wanted to add this talks
> about Lisp indentation, so perhaps if we add index entries which will
> make it easier to find that section, there will be no need for a
> separate index entry you suggested?

Granted, mine was more of a developer's scenario where I knew the
(potential) name of the property I was looking for.  That kind of
documentation was hard to find.  I have no idea whether the more
abstract, user-level indexing of this section is appropriate or not.