magic-mode-alist has too high a priority

[Dominique de Waleffe]

I need to view/edit ontologies in OWL syntax (XML files).
I use an owl-mode which puts ("\\.owl$" . owl-mode) in front of
auto-mode-alist.

However when I view those ontologies, the magic-mode-alist specified
function (xml-mode) is called because of the <?xml token on the first
line. So I find my file visited in xml-mode instead of the owl-mode.

[I cannot put a -*- owl-*- line either as the files are normally written 
by another tool...]

To me this is wrong. The mode in auto-mode-alist should be favored
when present because:
- configuring both magic-mode-alist and auto-mode-alist is a lot more
complex, and it breaks a behaviour that was in Emacs for quite a long
time.
- magic-mode-alist is not customisable

=> the mode specified by magic-mode-alist should be used if the other
options (all of which are more visible and known) have not provided a
mode.

Took me a while to see the magic :-)

Best regards to  all,

D.


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--
Dominique de Waleffe

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