[slime-devel] Find Definitions

[Terje Norderhaug]

I have some concerns regarding #'swank:find-definitions-for-emacs,  
which is documented to "Return a list ((DSPEC LOCATION) ...) of  
definitions for NAME." MCLIDE uses this functionality for the button  
on its Apropos dialog that opens the definition for a symbol in the  
editor.

In slime-2009-12-18, #'swank:find-definitions-for-emacs gives a  
significantly different result depending on the lisp implementation.  
This leads to compatibility issues and complicates client side use of  
the result. Evaluate:

(swank:find-definitions-for-emacs "swank::find-definitions")

Clozure Common Lisp 1.4-r13119 returns:

(("#'SWANK-BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS" (:LOCATION (:FILE "/Volumes/ 
Mirror/Users/Terje/DEV/MCLIDE_DEV/MCLIDE 1.0b1-2/MCLIDE.app/Contents/ 
Resources/Slime/swank-backend.lisp") (:POSITION 28699) (:SNIPPET  
"(definterface find-definitions (name)
   "))))

LispWorks 5.1.0 returns:

(("(DEFUN SWANK-BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS)" (:LOCATION (:FILE "/ 
Volumes/Mirror/Users/Terje/DEV/MCLIDE_DEV/MCLIDE 1.0b1-2/MCLIDE.app/ 
Contents/Resources/Slime/swank-lispworks.lisp") (:FUNCTION-NAME "FIND- 
DEFINITIONS") NIL)) ("(DEFUN SWANK-BACKEND:FIND- 
DEFINITIONS)" (:LOCATION (:FILE "/Volumes/Mirror/Users/Terje/DEV/ 
MCLIDE_DEV/MCLIDE 1.0b1-2/MCLIDE.app/Contents/Resources/Slime/swank- 
backend.lisp") (:FUNCTION-NAME "FIND-DEFINITIONS") NIL)))


Of particular concern is the DSPEC, which Clozure returns as "#'SWANK- 
BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS" and LispWorks returns as "(DEFUN SWANK- 
BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS)". It would be helpful if the DSPEC  
standardized on the same symbol to denote that the definition is for  
a function, as in (FUNCTION SWANK-BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS).

To facilitate client side use and flexibility in presentation, I also  
suggest that the DSPEC is returned as a list instead of as a string,  
with the type as a symbol and the function name encoded as a string,  
as in (FUNCTION "SWANK-BACKEND:FIND-DEFINITIONS").

-- Terje Norderhaug
    terje at in-progress.com