bug#8660: 23.2; info-look.el makefile-mode derivatives

[Kevin Ryde]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>> I suppose also info-look might check a derived-mode-parent if a mode
>> doesn't have its own setup.  That might pick up more things with less
>> effort in each mode.
>
> Oh, yes, that would be a better change.  Patch welcome.

It took a while but I made the couple of lines below.

I considered having the lookup bits such as info-lookup->mode-value do
their lookups under a parent mode if the given mode has nothing.  But I
think there are too many complications from that.  Some calls are asking
if there's anything before adding and thus don't want a fallback.  The
caching bits probably would want to cache against the actual name rather
than any derived child name.  And behaviour would subtly change after a
derived mode has loaded and thus gained a `derived-mode-parent'
property.

A nicer default `info-lookup-mode' should do only good, and it won't
affect anything which explicitly selects an info-lookup-mode itself.



2013-02-16  Kevin Ryde  <user42@zip.com.au>

        * info-look.el (info-lookup-select-mode): If major-mode has no
        info-lookup-alist entry then search up derived-mode-parent.
        This means a define-derived-mode uses its parent's info-look setups
        if it has none of its own.  Helps `makefile-gmake-mode' and friends
        automatically use their parent `makefile-mode' instead of prompting
        for a mode.

diff -u /home/gg/bug/info-look-parent/info-look.el.orig 
/home/gg/bug/info-look-parent/info-look.el
--- /home/gg/bug/info-look-parent/info-look.el.orig     2012-09-09 
07:58:12.000000000 +1000
+++ /home/gg/bug/info-look-parent/info-look.el  2013-02-16 10:47:30.000000000 
+1100
@@ -298,6 +298,21 @@
        (when (string-match (caar file-name-alist) file-name)
          (setq info-lookup-mode (cdar file-name-alist)))
        (setq file-name-alist (cdr file-name-alist)))))
+
+  ;; If major-mode has no setups in info-lookup-alist, under any topic, then
+  ;; search up through derived-mode-parent to find a parent mode which does
+  ;; have some setups.  This means that a `define-derived-mode' with no
+  ;; setups of its own will select its parent mode for lookups, if one of
+  ;; its parents has some setups.  Good for example on `makefile-gmake-mode'
+  ;; and similar derivatives of `makefile-mode'.
+  ;; 
+  (let ((mode major-mode)) ;; look for `mode' with some setups
+    (while (and mode (not info-lookup-mode))
+      (dolist (topic-cell info-lookup-alist) ;; usually only two topics here
+        (if (info-lookup->mode-value (car topic-cell) mode)
+            (setq info-lookup-mode mode)))
+      (setq mode (get mode 'derived-mode-parent))))
+
   (or info-lookup-mode (setq info-lookup-mode major-mode)))
 
 (defun info-lookup-change-mode (topic)

Diff finished.  Sat Feb 16 10:48:55 2013