Re: cc-mode fontification feels random

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Cc: acm@muc.de,  dancol@dancol.org,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2021 11:22:21 -0400
> 
> >> E.g. in ELisp, what looks like a defun might actually be in the middle
> >> of a string and there's no reliable way to know if something's in
> >> a string other than to parse from BOB.
> >> In C the situation is somewhat similar but for comments.
> >
> > So you are saying we need that just to know where the current defun
> > begins?
> 
> Not really: the dependency goes the other way around.
> 
> The real question is "given a POS determine whether it is inside
> a string or a comment or neither", which we need in all kinds of
> circumstances (sometimes we need a bit more info than that, of course,
> but this one is the killer).
> 
> Approaches like `open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start` try to answer
> this question without parsing from BOB by making an assumption that if
> something looks like a defun, then it is neither inside a string nor
> a comment.

Then I guess you are not describing what CC Mode does, do you.  Which
is the subject of this discussion, AFAIU.  Doesn't CC Mode go to BOB
_a_lot_, and not just to determine whether we are inside a string or a
comment?