Re: defcustom and the stars.

[Stefan Monnier]

> Since I started Elisp programming, I've always wondered why there is
> an opposition between the following lines of the manual:

>  -- Macro: defcustom option standard doc [keyword value]...
>      [...]There is no need to start [the docstring] with a `*'

> and these lines of shell:

>   mistral% cd ~/src/emacs/lisp
>   mistral% echo; cat grep.awk; echo
  
>   BEGIN { grepped=0 }
>   /^\(defcustom/ { grepped=1 ; next }
>   /^ *"[*]/ { if (grepped==1) { print (FILENAME, ":", NR) } }
>   { grepped=0 }
  
>   mistral% { for f (**/*.el) awk -f grep.awk $f } | wc -l
>   3011
  
> (this is 3011 matches of bad-style according to the doc)

> Is there any reason ?

History.  The * used to be necessary for M-x set-variable to be usable.
Now the * in defcustoms is just a relic and should slowly disappear.


        Stefan