bug#8688: 23.2; search-whitespace-regexp not working as documented

[Glenn Morris]

Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> I think you're being confused by the way customize treats regexps (it
>> confuses me as well; I'm not sure it is helpful).
>
> They are just literal strings, without lisp-level quoting.

I know, but I find it confusing, and it seems others do too (eg this;
also bug#2666). It makes it difficult to write doc-strings for 'regexp
defcustoms, as we see in both of these cases.

>> Oh, it's not possible to type a TAB, or ctrl-M, or newline, in a custom
>> field
>
> C-q works fine.

Yes, but that's not what the doc says people should type, and IMO
"ctrl-q ctrl-j" is a lot more confusing than "\n", especially in an
interface that is supposed to make life easier.