Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 4d3a595: `load-path' should contain only directory names

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stephen Leake <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2015 08:19:25 -0500
> 
> > Let's say "directory file name" in the doc string of 'load-path',
> > since we've been doing that since time immemoriam.
> 
> See attached patch; if approved, I'll push it.

LGTM, but see the few comments below.

>    A @dfn{directory name} is the name of a directory.  A directory is
> -actually a kind of file, so it has a file name, which is related to
> -the directory name but not identical to it.  (This is not quite the
> -same as the usual Unix terminology.)  These two different names for
> -the same entity are related by a syntactic transformation.  On GNU and
> -Unix systems, this is simple: a directory name ends in a slash,
> -whereas the directory's name as a file lacks that slash.  On MS-DOS
> -the relationship is more complicated.
> -
> -  The difference between a directory name and its name as a file is
> +actually a kind of file, so it has a file name (called the
> address@hidden file name}, which is related to the directory name but
> +not identical to it.  (This is not quite the same as the usual Unix
> +terminology.)  These two different names for the same entity are
> +related by a syntactic transformation.  On GNU and Unix systems, this
> +is simple: a directory name ends in a slash, whereas the directory
> +file name lacks that slash.  On MS-DOS the relationship is more
> +complicated.

This is a good change, but we generally observe the rule of indexing
any phrase that we give the @dfn markup.  The rationale is that this
is terminology, and someone might want to find its description by
using the Info index searching commands (or by looking in the Inde of
a printed book).  So please add an index entry for "directory file
name", similarly to what we already have for "directory name".

> +  To avoid the issues mentioned above, or if the @var{dirname} value
> +might be nil (for example, from an element of @var{load-path}), use:

load-path is a literal symbol, so it should be in @code, not @var.
The latter is for symbols that stand for something else (a.k.a.
"variables" that can be assigned a value)

> +Each element is a string (directory file name) or nil (meaning 
> `default-directory').

This line is too long, please break it into two.

Otherwise okay, thanks.