[gnu.emacs.bug] redundent arg computation

gildea@BBN.COM (Stephen Gildea) (09/15/89)

Some of the functions in lisp.el -- forward-sexp, backward-sexp,
forward-list, and backward-list -- specify "(interactive "p")" but then
do "(or arg (setq arg 1))", which isn't necessary.

 < Stephen

jbw@bucsf.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (09/15/89)

In article <8909150058.AA09492@life.ai.mit.edu> gildea@BBN.COM (Stephen Gildea) writes:

   Some of the functions in lisp.el -- forward-sexp, backward-sexp,
   forward-list, and backward-list -- specify "(interactive "p")" but then
   do "(or arg (setq arg 1))", which isn't necessary.

This allows these functions to be used from Lisp code like this:

  (forward-sexp)

as shorthand for this:

  (forward-sexp 1)

The arguments of these functions are declared using the &optional keyword,
which directs lisp to fill in the parameters with nil, if arguments are
not supplied.

--
Joe Wells <jbw@bucsf.bu.edu>
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