compilation-mode, face, font-lock-face

[Stephen Leake]

I have an external program that produces messages similar to compilation
errors; they have file name and line numbers.

However, the program is designed to start once, then accept commands on
stdin.

So I can't use 'compilation-start' to send a new command to the program,
but I'd like to use the compilation machinery to highlight the file/line
and navigate to them.

So I start the process, and in the associated buffer I call
compilation-mode, and set compilation-error-regexp-alist.

The file/line locations are recognized, and next-error jumps to them.

However, the buffer is not highlighted.

describe-text-properties shows that there is a font-lock-face property
set appropriately, but the text shows as plain black.

Comparing to a compilation buffer created via M-x compile, I can't
figure out what is different.

As I understand it, 'font-lock-face' is supposed to be set only by
font-lock; 'face' should be set by any other mechanism. So I don't
understand why compile.el is setting 'font-lock-face' instead of 'face'.

Apparently M-x compile does something to font-lock that I'm not doing.

Can anyone explain what's going on?

-- 
-- Stephe