RE: (describe-function 'self-insert-command) takes too long

[Drew Adams]

    > Looking up bindings is only a tiny part of what
    describe-function does.

    describe-function doesn't look up those bindings --
    where-is-internal does that.

Yes, but describe-function-1 then iterates over all of the keys:

;; Which non-control non-meta keys run this command?
(dolist (key keys)
  (if (member (event-modifiers (aref key 0)) '(nil (shift)))
      (push key non-modified-keys)))

At least there, a count could be checked. I don't claim that would
significantly help, but if the end result is to display only 10 non-modified
keys max, then there is no sense in testing and accumulating more than 10
(certainly not ~5000). And all of the `self-insert-command' keys are
non-modified, I imagine.

    And where-is-internal is a generic command which should return
    all bindings. [it could have an optional LIMIT arg though].

I can't speak to whether that would be desirable or feasible. You're
probably right that that is where the main waste of time occurs.

    > Irrelevant. When you click a button (or whatever), you don't
    > expect its dialog box (or whatever) to be displayed after a
    > delay of a couple of seconds; you expect it to appear immediately.

    When I ask a question, like C-h k a, I don't expect it to
    complete immediately if the answer is complex.

Maybe that's a place we differ. I don't see the answer to either
`describe-key' or `describe-function' as being complex. For
`describe-function', the list of bindings is only a side feature, and there
is no attempt to give a complete list. How we get the result might be
complex (I don't know), but the result itself is not particularly complex.

    >     And anything smarter could mean that it would have to
    >     know something in advance - and how can it do that?
    >
    > What does it have to know? It can just stop calculating when
    > it has already found 100 bindings. Put the length filter
    > inside the loop, instead of outside it - filter promotion;
    > that's all. Tell me, if I'm misunderstanding
    > (and no need to shout). AFAICT, this shouldn't be a big deal.

    I'm not against doing that if it is the right fix.

    However, the where_is_internal code is a bit tricky, so this is not
    the right time to change it.

OK. Thanks for looking into this, in any case.