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author | Dave Love <fx@gnu.org> |
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date | Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:34:10 +0000 |
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@c -*-texinfo-*- @c This is part of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. @c Copyright (C) 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc. @c See the file elisp.texi for copying conditions. @node Antinews, Index, Standard Hooks, Top @appendix Emacs 19 Antinews For those users who live backwards in time, here is information about downgrading to Emacs version 19.34. We hope you will enjoy the greater simplicity that results from the absence of many Emacs 20 features. In the following section, we carry this information back as far as Emacs 19.29, for which the previous printed edition of this manual was made. @section Old Lisp Features in Emacs 19 Here are the most important of the features that you will learn to do without in Emacs 19: @itemize @bullet @item In a great simplification, Emacs 19 supports ASCII characters only. There are no multibyte characters, character sets, language environments, coding systems, or input methods; all the functions that specifically relate to them are gone as well. Valid character codes for text must be in the range 0 through 255. Within this range, there are no invalid character codes. @item The Custom facility has been replaced with a much simpler and more general method of defining user option variables. Instead of @code{defcustom}, which requires you to specify each user option's data type and classify options into groups, all you have to do is write a @code{defvar}. You should still start the documentation string with @samp{*}, though. @end itemize Here are changes in the Lisp language itself: @itemize @bullet @item Symbols whose names start with @samp{:} are no longer special in any way. They start out void, like most other symbols. @item The macros @code{when} and @code{unless} have been deleted. @item The functions @code{caar}, @code{cadr}, @code{cdar} and @code{cddr} no longer exist. @item The function @code{functionp} is now gone. If you don't know by now whether something is a function, Emacs can't tell you. @end itemize Here are changes in handling strings and text. @itemize @bullet @item The function @code{substring} works only on strings, not on vectors. @item There are no more character categories. @item When you compare strings with @code{equal}, it now compares their string properties as well as their text. All must match, or the strings are not equal. @item @code{format-time-string} no longer supports specified field width or specified padding. @item The functions @code{split-string} and @code{string} no longer exist. Neither does @code{store-substring} or @code{sref}. @item All printing characters have the same width. Therefore, we have deleted @code{char-width}, @code{string-width} and @code{truncate-string-to-width}. @item We have eliminated the functions @code{next-char-property-change} and @code{previous-char-property-change} also. @item Syntax parsing now determines the syntax of each character from the syntax table alone---not from text properties. This makes the syntax codes @samp{|} and @samp{!}, which were meant for use with text properties, useless; so we have deleted them. @item In the function @code{parse-partial-sexp}, passing @code{syntax-table} as the sixth argument @var{commentstop} no longer has any special meaning. And the return value has only eight elements. @end itemize Here are changes in other areas of Emacs Lisp: @itemize @bullet @item The macros @code{save-current-buffer}, @code{with-current-buffer}, @code{with-temp-buffer}, @code{with-temp-file}, @code{save-selected-window}, and @code{with-output-to-string} are gone. @item The easy-mmode facility for defining minor modes is gone too. @item Process filters and sentinels must explicitly save the match data, with @code{save-match-data}, or they will clobber the match data and something horrible will happen. @item As part of our effort to loosen up, @code{batch-byte-compile-file} no longer returns a nonzero status code if there is a compilation error. @item The ``mail user agent'' feature is gone. @item We have removed the functions @code{add-to-invisibility-spec} and @code{remove-from-invisibility-spec}, so you should manipulate the value of @code{buffer-invisibility-spec} by hand. @item The functions @code{face-documentation}, @code{face-bold-p}, @code{face-italic-p}, @code{set-face-bold-p}, @code{set-face-italic-p} are gone. Instead, use @code{make-face-bold} and friends. @item All the functions that operate on a file now discard an extra redundant directory name from the beginning of the file name---just like @code{substitute-in-file-name}. @item We have got rid of the function @code{access-file}. @item Most of the minibuffer input functions no longer take a default value as an argument. Also, they do not discard text properties from the result. This means that if you insert text with text properties into the minibuffer, the minibuffer value really will contain text properties. @item Only the simple menu item format is supported (@pxref{Simple Menu Items}). @item You can still bind @code{x-resource-class} around a call to @code{x-get-resource}, but it won't do anything special. @item Wave goodbye to the hooks @code{before-make-frame-hook}, @code{after-make-frame-functions}, and @code{window-configuration-change-hook}, @item The functions and variables that deal with MS Windows NT/95 have been renamed to start with @samp{win32-} instead of @samp{w32-}. This is because we admire Microsoft more each day as we go back into the past. @end itemize @section Onward into the Past! Here we go even further back, as far as Emacs 19.29, for which the previous printed edition of the Emacs Lisp manual was made. @itemize @bullet @item There are no char-tables or bool-vectors. Syntax tables, display tables, and case tables are all vectors now, and the value of @code{keyboard-translate-table} should be a vector or a string. @item There is only one kind of marker. When you insert text at the place where a marker points, the marker always ends up before that text, unless you use @code{insert-before-markers}, which puts all the markers after the inserted text. @item There is no function @code{overlays-in}. @item The variable @code{print-length} applies only to lists, not to vectors or strings. @item The function @code{convert-standard-filename} no longer exists, so each Lisp package must independently figure out which file names to use for its initialization files on each kind of operating system. @item The macro @code{with-timeout} has been eliminated, along with the function @code{y-or-n-p-with-timeout}. Idle timers don't exist at all; instead, maybe you can use @code{post-command-idle-hook} to do some of the same job. @item The functions @code{keymap-parent} and @code{set-keymap-parent} are gone. We expect keymaps to recognize their own parents. @item When you delete text and then undo a deletion, markers that were originally inside the deleted text end up either at the beginning or the end of it---not back in their original places. @item The interactive specification @samp{N} is gone now. @item There is no more @code{safe-length}. Don't try to be so safe! Did you expect to live forever? @item We got rid of @code{insert-file-contents-literally}, because programmers are too literal-minded anyway. @item As part of our continuing effort to help Lisp programmers to relax, we threw out the function @code{error-message-string}. Don't worry so much about errors! We all make mistakes. @item The keymap @code{special-event-map} is gone, because Emacs has no more special events. If you want to hold a party in Emacs, please let us know. @item You can't do date arithmetic with @code{encode-time} any more. @item The functions @code{command-execute} and @code{call-interactively} no longer accept the optional argument @var{keys}. @item @code{get-buffer-window-list} is gone as well. @item With the function @code{replace-match}, you can only replace the whole match, not a subexpression of it. @item We eliminated the hooks @code{buffer-access-fontify-functions}, @code{window-scroll-functions}, and @code{redisplay-end-trigger-functions}. @end itemize