Re: Why do emacs backtraces lack line numbers?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Yates <john@yates-sheets.org>
> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2022 11:50:46 -0500
> 
> I am doing my first significant bit of coding in elisp.
> 
> Relative to other environments that I have used, something
> that I miss sorely is line numbers in backtraces.
> 
> What explains their absence?

The line information needs to be recorded somewhere, before it can be
presented.  In compiled programs, for example, the compiler records
the line-number information in the debug info it generates.

None of this is present in Lisp, and moreover, until Emacs 29 the byte
compiler didn't even have a good idea of which line number it is
processing at any given time.

So I guess the simple answer is: because Emacs doesn't know.