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how to retrieve doc string for a face...


From: Drew Adams
Subject: how to retrieve doc string for a face...
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 23:53:14 -0800

Info node (elisp) Accessing Documentation says this:

 "In Emacs Lisp, a documentation string is accessible through the
  function or variable that it describes:"

And then it speaks of using functions `documentation' and
`documentation-property'.

It says nothing about retrieving the doc string supplied with `defface' or
`defgroup' or `defmacro' or ....

1. How are those doc strings retrieved? (e.g. `face-documentation')

2. Shouldn't that retrieval be documented too?

3. Info mentions the `function-documentation' property, in parallel with the
`variable-documentation' property. Is there no equivalent shortcut to
`documentation-property' for retrieving the doc string of a keyboard macro,
so that you must use `get'? Similarly, for properties `face-documentation',
`group-documentation', etc. (which are not even mentioned).

This business of retrieving doc strings doesn't seem very homogeneous - it
seems ad hoc. Shouldn't there be a simple, single way to get the doc
string(s) of an object?

If the same symbol has multiple doc strings, then that simple function would
need to let you specify which one(s) you want - by taking, for instance, a
TYPE argument, which could be a symbol such as `face' or a list of such
symbols. In the latter case, it would return the list (same order) of doc
strings. nil would be used to indicate that there is no doc string of the
given type.

I may not understand the design well, so that the above suggestion is not
appropriate, but I think that the manual, at least, should be more complete
on this matter. Even if completeness is not priority #1, node "Accessing
Documentation" should say more than it does.





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