Re: [PROPOSED-PATCH] Fix doc string quoting problems with '

[Ihor Radchenko]

Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> The Emacs doc string convention is to document values as-is when that
> is clear, and surrounded by `single quotes' otherwise. For example, a
> doc string "(a b c)" stands for a list of symbols, and the doc string
> "`a'" stands for a single symbol. The doc string "\\=`a" is typically
> not correct for that single symbol, because that is equivalent to
> "(quote a)" and the typical intent is to talk about the symbol, not
> about the Lisp quoting construct.  One needs "\\=`X" only when talking
> about something intended to be equivalent to "(quote X)", as in the
> doc string "(provide \\='org-xyz)".

Thanks for the patch!
The conventions sound reasonable, though I do not think that they are
documented in D.6 Tips for Documentation Strings section of the Elisp
manual.

The patch looks good in general, however I am not sure if it is a
good idea to change explicit 'symbol or '(...) mentions in the
documentation of the defcustoms. In particular, when 'symbol is intended
to be set as (setq variable 'symbol), I feel that 'symbol should be
preferred over `symbol' - it will make life easier for users who can
then just copy-paste the text from docstring.

Also, note that references in the babel documentation are _not_ Elisp
symbols - they are defined in #+name: name lines at the relevant src
blocks.

Finally, note that your patch does not apply after Kyle backported
similar changes from Emacs master.

Best,
Ihor