Re: Font-lock decides function call is function declaration in C+ + - Patch

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Richard!

On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 04:25:35PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     It's a fairly scrappy ad-hoc patch - it fixes a particular simple bug
>     scenario which will surely occur frequently.

> What I worry about is, how likely is it to cause new bugs in other
> cases?

I was worrying about that all the time I was formulating the bug and
writing the patch.  The answer is, IMBO[*], not very likely.  Here's my
analysis:

(i) The patch doesn't change the buffer contents (apart from, possibly,
text properties on some characters).  It intended effect is purely to
remove type-identifiers from the cache `c-found-types'.  Removing a type
from this cache when it should stay there wouldn't be that bad.  Failing
to remove a stale type would be no worse than the code prior to the fix.

(ii) Bugs like going off the end of a buffer, getting lisp errors with
empty buffers, and such like, are possible.

(iii) Bugs like forgetting to widen are possible.

[*] "In my biassed opion"

> It would be safer just to turn off this cache feature.

That would throw out some of the fontification, and would slow things
down.  I don't know by how much; I would guess quite a lot.

> How much would users mind that?

I would guess some (like Simon ;-) would mind a lot.  Others (like me)
would hardly notice.  I think, in general, it wouldn't be good to take
this cache out, now.  It's been in place since CC Mode 5.30 (summer
2003).

How about letting Simon test it on his C++ code?

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).