Re: Not using DOC for ELisp files

[Ken Raeburn]

On 2021-12-27 20:48, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> The patch below removes from the DOC file the docstrings coming from
> ELisp files.
>
> In numbers (in my tests), this reduces the size of DOC from about 3.2MB
> to about 850kB, and increases the pdmp size by about 53kB or about 0.7%.
>
> The benefits aren't great, obviously, but it does remove some warts in
> the `lread.c` code (into which I bumped in the `scratch/fcr` branch,
> which is why this comes up now).
>
> I have a vague recollection that such a change was mentioned in some
> bugreport-discussion some months ago but I can't remember where.
>
> Comments?


I've only skimmed the actual code changes so far, but I think this is a 
good direction to go.

Stefan Kargas dug up an old bug report of mine, but I think I may also 
have mentioned something like this in our old discussion and 
experimentation of doing away with unexec in favor of a big .elc file, a 
few years back now(!), my idea at the time being to reduce the runtime 
startup work done in a build without unexec.

Another piece I recall looking at, which I don't remember if I brought 
up on the list at the time, was moving the C based doc strings into the 
generated .o files and the executable; in combination with removing the 
elisp doc strings, this would get rid of the DOC file altogether. I 
haven't had much time for Emacs hacking in quite a while, sadly, but if 
there's interest, I can try to find a little time to dig up those old 
changes on the C side and see how complete they were and if they can 
still be adapted in some form or other...

Ken