Bug 53097 – elisp-common.eclass contains mutually exclusive instructions

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description John Altstadt 2004-06-05 16:56:25 UTC]

The einfo from elisp-common.eclass tells you to remove the site-start.el file and then after it is gone, to add a line to it.

What should the user really do with this file?

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
emerge -v htmlfontify
Actual Results:  
The following einfo popped up:

 * All site initialization for Gentoo-installed packages is now added to
 * /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-gentoo.el; site-start.el is no longer
 * managed by Gentoo.   You may want to remove the generated
 * site-start.el.
 * 
 * In order for this site initialization to be loaded for all users
 * automatically, as was done previously, you can add a line like this:
 * 
 * (load "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-gentoo")
 * 
 * to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.el.  Alternatively, that line
 * can be added by individual users to their initialization files, or for
 * greater flexibility, users can select which of the package-specific
 * initialization files in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp to load.

Expected Results:  
The einfo should contain sane instructions for the user.

Portage 2.0.50-r7 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.3_pre20040207-r0,
2.4.20-gentoo-r9)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r9 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.15
distcc 2.13 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled]
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r3
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp -funroll-loops -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config
/usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config
/usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/
/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/
/usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp -funroll-loops -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distcc sandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://128.213.5.34/gentoo/ http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/
http://gentoo.noved.org/ http://mirror.tucdemonic.org/gentoo/
http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
MAKEOPTS="-j4"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow X alsa apache2 apm arts avi berkdb bonobo cdr cjk crypt cups curl dga
directfb doc dvd emacs encode esd ethereal fastcgi fbcon foomaticdb gb gd gdbm
gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imap imlib innodb java jpeg kde libg++
libwww mad maildir mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mysql ncurses nls odbc ofx
oggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline samba
sasl sdl slang slp spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype unicode usb
wmf x86 xml xml2 xmms xv zeo zlib"

[Comment 1 Mamoru KOMACHI (RETIRED) 2004-06-26 05:08:35 UTC]

Previously site-start.el was generated by Portage and users couldn't have
their own site-start.el. A number of people complained about this ``feature'',
so we decided to use site-gentoo.el for Gentoo stuff and let users load it
themselves if they want to use it. If you are new to use Gentoo, you don't
need to remove site-start.el (rather I assume you don't have one). The first
part is for existing users who may have old site-start.el generated by Portage.
Since we no longer manage site-start.el by Portage, users should load
site-gentoo.el either by site-start.el or by .emacs file, that's all.

I mark this bug as INVALID but feel free to post any questions if anything
unclear. Suggestions/improvements about the einfo are also welcomed.

[Comment 2 John Altstadt 2004-06-28 12:08:02 UTC]

I still have serious objections to the text of the einfo.

Removing the site-start.el file is very much the wrong thing to do. If a casual emacs user, such as myself, actually removes this file, then everything loaded by this file ceases to work. When I tested out the newly emerged package, I was able to figure out that following the directions in the einfo had rendered htmlfontify non-functional. Fortunately I was able to restore the file from backup.

I would change the first part of the einfo to say something like:

 * All site initialization for Gentoo-installed packages is now added to
 * /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-gentoo.el; site-start.el is no longer
 * managed by Gentoo. You are responsible for all maintenance of
 * site-start.el if there is such a file.

which can then be followed by the rest of the text that implies that site-start.el is a somewhat important file.

[Comment 3 Mamoru KOMACHI (RETIRED) 2004-07-04 07:01:42 UTC]

Thanks for the comment. I changed that part accordingly.