bug#26925: Improve /doc/lispref/strings.texi (split-string) documentation

[Michael Albinus]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

Hi Eli,

>> >> It's up to you. I thought it was weird that all the other
>> > optional arguments were not labeled as "optional" and only this
>> > one.
>> > 
>> > That's not what I see: grepping the ELisp manual for "optional
>> > argument" comes up with more than 200 hits.  It's quite normal to use
>> > that.
>> 
>> I am talking about this function. This function does not use
>> "optional arguments" for its other optional arguments.
>
> Sorry, but I don't see that as a significant evidence.  There's
> nothing special about this function that would cause us to treat it
> any different from the rest.
>
> Once again, these are matters of personal style, and IMO we shouldn't
> make changes motivated by style preferences alone.

I don't believe Jean-Christophe is speaking about his personal style. He
claims that two different personal styles are used in the `split-string'
description in the lispref manual: SEPARATORS and OMIT-NULLS are
described as arguments, and TRIM is described as "optional argument"
explicitely. He proposes to harmonize this, which I support.

And btw, the docstring of `split-string' does not speak about TRIM as
"optional argument" either.

Best regards, Michael.