Re: Documentation not clear for the Lisp function set-variable

[Richard M. Stallman]

    After all this discussion, I'm not sure what's to be installed, so let
    me recapitulate.  The patch below modifies `user-variable-p' so it
    also considers as user variables these aliases that point, directly or
    indirectly, to other user variables; that includes also obsolete
    aliases, I'm not filtering them out. It also returns nil for alias
    loops, irrespective of whether any of the aliases in the loop would
    qualify as a user variable or not.

That all sounds right.

      - Is there a consensus whether obsolete aliases should be shown or
    not?

I am not sure what you mean by "shown".  Obsolete aliases should
be accepted by user-variable-p.

     - Should `set-variable' give warnings for all aliases, for obsolete
    aliases only? Should o it for obsolete variables even if they aren't
    aliases?

It should give warnings for all obsolete variables.

     - What's the right moment to give the warning? Before setting the
    value or after it?

It should be the last thing set-variable does.