Re: Diff faces

[Michael Kifer]

>     Ediff puts face names as strings on overlays, but describe-face accepts
>     only symbols.  The patch below fixes describe-face to not fail on face
>     name strings.  As for fixing ediff, I don't know whether this is 
> necessary,
>     since face names as strings are mostly interchangeable with face symbols.
>     There are only two places in ediff*.el files that call `face-name' to
>     convert face symbols to strings, so these calls could be removed.
> 
> I agree describe-face should handle a string as the face property,
> since that's a documented feature.  So please install that patch.
> 
> However, is there a good reason for ediff to use strings
> instead of symbols to specify the faces?

I think that in the old days this is what was required.
Or, maybe for compatibility with XEmacs -- do not remember (was 10 years
back or so).