Re: Documentation style

[Luc Teirlinck]

Alexander Pohoyda wrote:

   I re-read the Documentation section in the manual, but didn't
   find the answer.

   Is there a reason to document variables like this:

   (defvar abcd nil "\
   *Some variable..")

   or is it *fully* equivalent to this:

   (defvar abcd nil
     "Some variable..")

The answer is at the end of `(elisp)Autoload':

    The backslash and newline immediately following the double-quote are a
    convention used only in the preloaded uncompiled Lisp files such as
    `loaddefs.el'; they tell `make-docfile' to put the documentation
    string in the `etc/DOC' file.  *Note Building Emacs::.  See also the
    commentary in `lib-src/make-docfile.c'.

Sincerely,

Luc.