Re: A question about face-all-attributes

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 18:47:59 +0800
> From: Xue Fuqiao <xfq.free@gmail.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> >>   (face-all-attributes 'default)
> >>     =>
> >>   ((:family . unspecified) (:foundry . unspecified) (:width .
> >> unspecified) (:height . unspecified) (:weight . unspecified) (:slant .
> >> unspecified) (:underline . unspecified) (:overline . unspecified)
> >> (:strike-through . unspecified) (:box . unspecified) (:inverse-video .
> >> unspecified) (:foreground . unspecified) ...)
> >>
> >> But:
> >>
> >>   (describe-face 'default)
> >>     =>
> >>       Family: Ubuntu Mono
> >>      Foundry: unknown
> >>        Width: normal
> >>       Height: 128
> >>       ...
> >>
> >> Why are the two results different?  I expected similar results from
> >> them.
> >
> > If the results were similar, the existence of describe-face would not
> > have been justified.  It exists to show you what the default
> > attributes really will be.
> 
> Thanks, Eli.  But in (info "(elisp) Face Attributes"):
> 
>   An ‘unspecified’ attribute tells Emacs to refer instead to a parent
>   face; or, failing that, to an underlying face.  The ‘default’ face
>   must specify all attributes.
> 
> But all the attributes returned by face-all-attributes are
> ‘unspecified’, why?

Evidently, the manual is blatantly wrong.  Unless this is an
unfortunate combination of using `unspecified' in the first sentence
and `specify' in the second, which does not necessarily mean "cannot
use `unspecified' in the 'default' face."