Re: unload-feature questions and thoughts

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 10/10/07, Davis Herring <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'm glad to contribute a native speaker's touch, but I'm afraid that I
> don't see what's wrong with it.  Looking at the code, it does seem that it
> invokes that hook ("fortran-unload-hook" for (unload-feature 'fortran)) if
> it exists, or else goes hunting for non-autoloaded functions defined by
> the package that are on -hook/etc. variables or on `auto-mode-alist'.  Am
> I misreading the same way that you have done?

Apparently, you're not misreading the docstring.

Each time I read this bit:

  Packages may define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook that is called
  instead of the normal heuristics for doing this.  Such a hook should
  undo all the relevant global state changes that may have been made by
  loading the package or executing functions in it.

I interpret it as if "all the relevant global state changes" refers
not just to hooks and `auto-mode-alist' (which is not mentioned in the
docstring), but to all other things that `unload-feature' does, i.e.:
killing local values of variables, f?makeunbound'ing symbols,
restoring autoloads, etc.

In other words, these sentences always make me think that either you
use `FEATURE-unload-hook' and do all the work, or you don't use it and
let `unload-feature' work its magic. Now, I *know* that's not what it
says; it's just what I read :(

In the previous discussion, David Kastrup said:

  I seem to remember that I actually had to read the code before
  getting the right idea about what FEATURE-unload-hook does.

and afterwards:

  Maybe "the normal heuristics" and "all the relevant global state
  changes" are far too much hand-waving: readers will probably
  phantasize whatever they would think useful into it.

I think these quotes summarize the problem nicely.

             Juanma