[comp.emacs] Scrambled help file

sethr@CUNIXC.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Seth Robertson) (03/10/89)

Greetings:

I have GNU emacs 18.52, and I have recently noticed that my help file
(or at least what I see when I do a C-h A) is scrambled beyond all
help.  The names of the commands come up fine, but the actual
explanations of the commands are incomplete and are frequent
describing totally different functions.

If anyone knows what I should do (besides rebuilding emacs), please
let me know.


					-Seth Robertson
					 seth@ctr.columbia.edu

ngo@tammy.harvard.edu (Tom Ngo) (03/10/89)

In article <8903100545.AA27062@columbia.edu> sethr@CUNIXC.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Seth Robertson) writes:

>  I have GNU emacs 18.52, and I have recently noticed that my help
>  file (or at least what I see when I do a C-h A) is scrambled beyond
>  all help.  The names of the commands come up fine, but the actual
>  explanations of the commands are incomplete and are frequent
>  describing totally different functions.

I think you should try to byte-compile the files lisp/*.el to make a
fresh set of lisp/*.elc files, then remake etc/DOC.  You should be
able to do the latter by switching to the directory src/, and typing
"make -f xmakefile ../DOC".

The documentation file etc/DOC is generated by a program called
etc/make-docfile, which reads in your src/*.o (object) files and your
lisp/*.elc (byte-compiled lisp) files.  Commonly the latter are
corrupt, for one reason or another.  More likely, the DOC file itself
is either corrupt or has been compiled for a different machine--I do
believe that it is machine dependent.  If you are trying to run emacs
and a network environment with different machines, you may want to
maintain separarate etc/ directories for each of the different
architectures that you wish to support.

I hope this helps.  I had the same problem for a while.
--
     --Tom Ngo

     e-mail:    ngo@endor.harvard.edu
     US mail:   12 Oxford St Box 201
		Cambridge, MA  02138
     Phone:     (617) 495-1768 (office)