Re: Recent change to describe-variable

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sat, 02 Apr 2011 20:15:15 -0400 Chong Yidong <address@hidden> wrote: 

CY> The completion function for describe-variable now uses the predicate
CY>   (lambda (vv)
CY>     (or (special-variable-p vv)
CY>         (get vv 'variable-documentation)))

CY> This breaks using C-h v to examine let-bound variables in Lisp
CY> backtraces.

CY> Also, when coding I sometimes do (setq foo 1), and use C-h v to examine
CY> the placeholder variable later on; this now fails.

CY> There doesn't seem to be any good reason to restrict the completion this
CY> way.

I think I reported this.  It is too wide without that predicate.  See
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/137048

So if `C-h v' AKA `describe-variable' is going to describe everything,
it should at least filter out self-quoting :symbols, and I think it
makes sense to provide a `describe-emacs-variable' to use the predicate
above, adjusting for let-bound variables.

Ted