Re: font-lock-keywords uses only facename

[Stefan Monnier]

> It's just historical stupidity.

Well, I wouldn't put it qute like this.  Given the fact that any expression
is allowed, and that quoting can be used to get the "unevaluated" behavior,
the current behavior has the advantage of being general and simple.

> If it were being designed today, it would probably just use face names
> directly,

If I were writing it today, I'd just do an `eval' as did Simon Marshall:
it's simpler and there is no loss of generality.  And adding a quote is
really not that difficult.

> but font-lock is _really_ old...

Indeed.  A complete overhaul is long overdue.

> I presume you're asking whether it could do something like:

>    (if (and (symbolp expr) (not (boundp expr)))
>        expr      ; use face name directly
>      (eval expr))  ; evaluate EXPR to get face name

> ?

> It seems like it would work, though I wonder if it could cause more
> confusion...

I think if we really care about it (although it hasn't bothered us that
much for the last however many years, so I doubt it's worth the trouble),
we could do something like:

- when "compiling" the keywords, do something like

    (if (and (symbolp expr) (not (boundp expr)) (facep expr))
        (list 'quote expr)
      expr)

- put a condition-case around font-lock-fontify-keywords-region like

    (condition-case unbound-err
        ...blabla...
      (void-variable
        (let ((var (cadr unbound-err)))
          (if (and (symbolp var) (not (boundp var)) (facep var))
              (error "Face %s needs to be quoted in font-lock-keywords" var)
            (signal (car unbound-err) (cdr unbound-err))))))


-- Stefan