Re: Emacs bug #23794; sort-line behavior regressed from prior Emacs versions

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Robert Weiner <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2016 13:50:23 -0400
> Cc: emacs-devel <address@hidden>, Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
> 
>  I see that you consider this a regression. But the change you refer
>  to was in Emacs 22.1, released 9 years ago, so we've lived with this
>  long enough to consider your proposal a new feature.
> 
> Well, we just fixed a 20-year-old documentation bug on markers from some 
> prior discussion, but I see why
> you might want to view it that way. If the behavior is a bug, no matter how 
> long-standing, it should certainly be
> given some standing above a regular new feature request.

I don't think it's a bug, in the sense that the old behavior was
intended.  I think the old behavior was a side effect of the
implementation, so when the implementation changed, the behavior
changed with it.

IOW, I don't think it was ever the design goal to have sorting
disregard invisible text.

>  I also think
>  that your proposed change goes farther than just restoring that old
>  behavior, because outline and its derivatives are not the only modes
>  that use invisible text.
> 
> Can you provide one example where this patch changes the behavior of line 
> sorting in a negative way?

Why do you need examples?  Isn't it clear that ignoring invisible text
will affect much more than just outline modes?  It's clear to me.