Byte compiling and semi-free variables

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Lennart Borgman writes:
 > If you order definitions top-down in your elisp source files, like this
 > 
 >   ;;;; Interactive defuns:
 > 
 >   (defun my-fun ()
 >     (interactive)
 >     (setq my-internal-var 1) )
 > 
 >   ;;;; Internal variables
 >   (defvar my-internal-var nil)

But that's not top-down.  `my-internal-variable' is global, ie, it has
the same scope as `my-fun'.

If `my-internal-variable' is not intended to be global, ie, it is only
accessed in `my-fun', then you could try

(defun my-fun ()
  (interactive)
  ;; The elisp static local wannabe idiom
  (eval-when-compile (defvar my-internal-var))
  (setq my-internal-var 1))