Re: cannot activate font-lock-mode

[Francesco Potorti`]

>>>> I had this in my local variables section:
>>> 
>>>> mode: font-lock
>>>> font-lock-keywords: ("^\\S-.*:$")
>>> 
>>>> which worked in Emacs 21, but does not work any more in Emacs 22.  I
>>>> solved the problem by writing instead:
>>> 
>>>> mode: font-lock
>>>> font-lock-defaults: (("^\\S-.*:$"))
>>> 
>>> I must say that I don't know why this has changed.
>>> Does the patch below fix your problem?
>
>> No, nothing changed.  If I use font-lock-keywords I get the message:
>>  "Toggling font-lock-mode off; better pass an explicit argument."
>
>That looks correct: since font-lock is now enabled by default your "mode:
>font-lock" might very well end up turning the mode OFF, and this is what the
>message tells you.

Nonetheless, the behaviour does not change.  Either with your patch:
-          (font-lock-eval-keywords keywords))
+          (font-lock-eval-keywords (or keywords font-lock-keywords)))

or without, the behaviour is the same.  Specifically:

- if I remove the "mode: font-lock" line from the local variables, no
  fontification is done
- else, if "mode: font-lock" is there:
  + if I use font-lock-keywords I get the above message
  + if I use font-lock-defaults I get fontification and no messages