Interesting problem: eval-after-load and local variables

[Sebastien Vauban]

Hello,

In order to speed up my Emacs startup, I've put many customizations in
eval-after-load's, such as:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
  (eval-after-load "time-stamp"
    '(progn
       ;; format of the string inserted by `M-x time-stamp'
       (setq time-stamp-format "%:y-%02m-%02d %3a %02H:%02M %u")))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

in order to avoid the require itself in the .emacs file.

Now, this causes a problem, as my local variable customizations aren't
respected anymore.

For example, I have the following local vars in my file `common.sty' to set up
the format of the time-stamp (à la LaTeX):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
%% common.sty -- LaTeX common commands and environments

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesPackage{common}[2012/10/15 v1.0 Common stuff between documents and 
presentations]

% ...

%% End of package
\endinput % very last line

% Local Variables:
% time-stamp-format: "%:y/%02m/%02d"
% time-stamp-start: "Provides\\(Class\\|Package\\){[a-zA-Z-]+}\\["
% time-stamp-end: " "
% End:
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

The problem is the following:

- Upon opening the file, Emacs sees it needs to load time-stamp.

- It does it (via the predefined autoloads), but the eval-after-load overrides
  the local variables' value.

- When saving the file, the time-stamp format provided in local vars is NOT
  applied.

In a way, that's perfectly normal. In another, not at all: I would expect the
local vars to win over the wide values, in any configuration (even if my setq
were in an eval-after-load construct).

What do you think?

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban