Re: elisp files

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello help-gnu-emacs readers,

I help maintain Automake, and would like to improve the Elisp files
support that it currently has,
<http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Emacs-Lisp.html>,
prompted by a bug report, see the quoted message below,
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.general/11057>.

Now, I'm not so firm in elisp file handling myself, so I'd appreciate a
bit of help regarding the questions below:

* Ralf Wildenhues wrote on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 06:21:22AM CEST:
> what are the (desired) semantics of elisp files?
> 
> Currently, you trip over Automake bugs when you use lisp files in
> subdirs (with or without subdir-objects):
>   lisp_LISP = sub/am.el
> 
> or use nobase_:
>   nobase_lisp_LISP = sub/am.el
> 
> Elias reported part of this to bug-automake in
> <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.bugs/4772>.
> 
> Now my questions:
> 
> - is the elisp installation tree hierarchical, in that it is useful to
>   have nobase_ support as above (where the files would be installed to
>   $(lispdir)/sub/am.el and $(lispdir)/sub/am.elc)?
> 
> - with the first line above, should the .elc file be compiled in sub or
>   in the toplevel, and should the answer to this question depend on
>   whether subdir-objects are used or not?
> 
> - assuming elisp compilation generally needs to see all files in a
>   directory (gathering from the elisp-comp script), do you think that
>   when listing lisp files from subdirectories in lisp_LISP, would it be
>   useful to assume they are independently compilable, or interdependent?
> 
> - if interdependent, is there a way I can get emacs (and any other tool
>   that may serve as lisp compiler) to output .elc files in
>   subdirectories?

Thanks for any pointers.  Please Cc: me on replies, I'm not subscribed.

Cheers,
Ralf