Ignoring file local-variables in patches?

[drkm]

  Hello

  One of the patches I had when working on Ediff is this one:

*** ediff-diff.el.old   Thu Dec 23 07:01:56 2004
--- ediff-diff.el       Thu Dec 30 08:24:14 2004
***************
*** 1338,1343 ****
--- 1338,1350 ----
                (append ediff-cmp-options (list f1 f2)))))
      (and (numberp res) (eq res 0))))
  
+ (defun ediff-same-file-contents-3 (f1 f2 &optional f3)
+   "Return t if F1, F2 and F3 (if applicable) have identical contents."
+   (and (ediff-same-file-contents file1 file2)
+        (or (null file3)
+            (and (ediff-same-file-contents file1 file3)
+                 (ediff-same-file-contents file2 file3)))))
+ 
  
  ;;; Local Variables:
  ;;; eval: (put 'ediff-defvar-local 'lisp-indent-hook 'defun)

  You can see it ends by a incomplete local variables list.  When I
open it, I have the error:

    File local-variables error: (error "Local variables list is not
    properly terminated")

  I think that these lists doesn't have to be processed for such
files, it isn't?  However, I guess a bootsrap issue: local variables
have to be processed to know the major mode, and how know to discard
this processing without knowing the major mode?

  Is the current behaviour a bug or a feature?

--drkm