Re: Allow specifying services as symbols?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:20:55 -0400 Chong Yidong <address@hidden> wrote: 

CY> "Davis Herring" <address@hidden> writes:
>>> ! :service SERVICE -- SERVICE is name of the service desired (a string
>>> ! or a symbol) or an integer specifying a port number to connect to.  If
>>> ! SERVICE is t, a random port number is selected for the server.  (If
>>> ! Emacs was compiled with getaddrinfo, a port number can also be
>>> ! specified as a string, e.g. "http", as well as an integer.  This is
>>> ! not portable.)
>> 
>> As more of a philosophical objection than anything, t is a symbol.

CY> Hmm, good catch.  So's nil.

OK, I will exclude t and nil.  That was a problem with the patch (t was
converted to "t" and nil to "nil").  Thanks for catching that!  Revised
version attached.

CY> So let's back up for a moment, here.  Lars, could you provide an example
CY> that shows why it's convenient to allow symbols to name services?

The issue came up as a customization user-side problem and I suggested
allowing symbols.  Using symbols is consistent with many other Emacs
facilities (too many to list) that use symbols to enumerate a small set
of choices.  It makes customization simpler and less error-prone for
software that uses `make-network-process'.  It doesn't really cost
anything.  The only downside is that if in the future we decide to add
options to the :service parameter besides t and nil, they won't be easy
to retrofit.

It's really not a big deal though, so if you're concerned about the
downside I listed or any others, let's kill the idea.

Ted

make-network-connection-with-symbol-service.patch
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