[PATCH v2] emacs: add compatability functions for emacs 23

[Tomi Ollila]

On Fri, Nov 11 2016, David Bremner <david at tethera.net> wrote:

> David Bremner <david at tethera.net> writes:
>
>> The plot thickens. With this patch applied, I can generate an emacs
>> segfault with
>>
>> 1) EMACS=emacs23 ./devel/try-emacs-mua -q
>>
>> 2) M-x notmuch-search <return>
>>
>> 3) tag:inbox <return>
>
> OK, I managed to figure out the problem. I had byte compiled the emacs
> code with emacs24, and loading that in emacs23 caused all heck to break
> loose. With the byte compilation done with a matching version of emacs,
> the test suite passes.

I tested this (almost 2 weeks ago :/) using debian wheezy (7.11) docker
container and all relevant (i.e. emacs) tests passed.

>
> So my conclusions from all this fun:
>
> 1) since Mark went to the trouble of doing the compatiblity functions,
>    we may as well get emacs23 working again.
>
> 2) It's getting hard to debug emacs23 problems, and developer time is
>    scarce, so at the same time, deprecate emacs23 support, so e.g. after
>    the next major release we can just drop it.

It is not hard at all. Just do not mess w/ mixed environments >;).

But this compatIbility change is not just emacs 23 -- iirc there were some
changes required to get emacs 24.1, 24.2, and 24.3 to work. It might be
easier to keep testing using emacs 23 until we deprecate everything before
emacs 24.4 (released October 20, 2014) -- or supporting emacs23 gets
nontrivial while supporting older emacs24 releases is still trivial (*)

(*) tried same with emacs22. when it got too hard we just did
ab30a846a49f576e1bfcd73f2ec41def474a6d96

I put the (new, shiny! ;) docker creation script I used to create this
wheezy container to:

https://github.com/domo141/nottoomuch/blob/dogfood/devel/test-in-docker.sh

(with https://github.com/domo141/nottoomuch/blob/dogfood/devel/test-on-macos.sh !)

> 3) With the caveat that we plan to drop the compat functions, I leave it
>    to mark's judgement whether it's worth putting them in a seperate
>    file, or just adding the FSF copyright to the top of the file.

compat functions will eventually be dropped (along with the code we already
have there to support emacs23)...

sepArate >;)

... but that said I'd suggest if there is going to be FSF copyright in the
file, create separate file for that.

and, also append 'g' to s/compatability/compatibility/ so that *all*
strings are replaced with correctly spelled version ;D

Tomi

PS: using google via smtpmail is pain... Now trying 3rd time... 5th...

got text message to go to google.com/blocked -- now 7th try...

8th... 9th...

Ok. It just fails. Sending the ordinary way (w/o google recipients, then).