Re: Coreutils Bug Tracker Tagging

[Bob Proulx]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> era eriksson wrote:
> >   (add-to-list 'gnus-bug-group-download-format-alist
> >     (cons 'coreutils
> >     "http://debbugs.gnu.org/%s;mboxmaint=yes;mboxstat=yes";))
> > (I don't use Emacs24 yet myself; this is based on my general Emacs
> > knowledge, and might need minor adjustment.)
> ...
> I put that in my .emacs file and ran "emacs -f debbugs-gnu", to no avail:
> 
>     Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading `/h/j/.emacs':
> 
>     Symbol's value as variable is void: gnus-bug-group-download-format-alist
> 
>     To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the
>     cause of the error in your initialization file.  Start Emacs with
>     the `--debug-init' option to view a complete error backtrace.
> 
> Looks like it's because gnus things haven't been pulled in.
> I guess I need to do the above on some hook that is run
> after debbugs-gnu loads the definition?

I won't have time to look at this myself for at least another day.
[Wah!  Too much to do! :-)]  But this post initialization is often
needed in emacs for various "monkey patching".  For example I have
this in my emacs initialization.

;; Stop the annoying question about exiting with shell processes still running.
(eval-after-load 'shell
  '(add-hook 'comint-exec-hook
             '(lambda ()
                (set-process-query-on-exit-flag (get-process "shell") nil))))

The problem is that I can't set the flag until the module is loaded
because it doesn't exist until it is loaded.  I don't want to always
load the module because it would slow down the start of every
invocation.  I started doing the above because my emacs start would
take a long time as it loaded everything at every start.  Doing things
like the above to only load if needed speeds things up hugely.

The idea is that eval-after-load is a hook that waits until that file
is loaded and then does the action.  In the above it installs another
hook.  Layers and layers.  Here is a snippet of the doc.

  (eval-after-load FILE FORM)

  Arrange that, if FILE is ever loaded, FORM will be run at that time.
  If FILE is already loaded, evaluate FORM right now.

  If a matching file is loaded again, FORM will be evaluated again.

Without really knowing, I haven't tried it, perhaps that technique
applies to this case too.  Don't know.  Just an idea.  I need to run
out the door right now.  Maybe tomorrow...

Bob