Re: debian-startup.el question

[Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>]

Rob Browning wrote:

> Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> writes:
> 
> > What is the intent behind running `load-file' if debug-on-error
> > is true?  `load-file' differs from `load' in that it does not
> > search the load-path; the full file path must be specified, which
> > is not the case here.
> >
> > If others agree, I'll file a bug report against emacsen-common.
> >
> > It shouldn't be an issue, except that the emacs21 prerelease I
> > have always thinks debug-on-error is true even when it isn't and
> > I always get the following error when running:
> 
> Though I don't know that we shouldn't change it, I'm wondering why I
> didn't have any problems when building/running emacs21.  I haven't
> changed emacsen-common yet, but it doesn't appear to have been a
> problem. ?

It turns out that I stumbled on this quite by accident...

I originally thought that the following was enough to setup
Debian elisp addons on an unpackaged emacs21:

 (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/")
 (load "debian-startup")
 (debian-startup 'emacs)

It turns out that I needed to defconst debian-emacs-flavor first.
Without it, `(debian-startup 'emacs)` would run but exit early
without actually setting stuff up.  So I ran it by hand, e.g. :

 M-: (debian-startup 'emacs)

And _this_ lead to the error on load-file because of an emacs21
(mis-)feature (from NEWS):

  *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
  modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
  print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
  customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
  eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.

So debug-on-error evaluates to `t even when it's unset.

-

Any timeline for an emacs21 package?  (We certainly need it by
the time woody freezes).

Peter