Re: Problems with (defvar foo) and Emacs 23

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:

> Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
>
>> Hi Bastien,
>> 
>> I updated to master today e917477 ((org-xhtml.el): Removed, 2012-04-01)
>> and am getting errors about org-clock-last-state not defined in my GNU
>> Emacs 23.2.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.0) of 2010-12-11 on
>> raven, modified by Debian
>> 
>> I can see the variable in the source defined as
>> 
>> lisp/org-clock.el:(defvar org-clock-state) ;; dynamically scoped into this function
>> 
>> but I don't get a variable definition with this code in emacs 23.2.1.
>> 
>> If I change the definition to
>> 
>> (defvar org-clock-state nil)
>> 
>> then it works for me.
>> 
>> There are _lots_ of these types of definitions with no value in the
>> org-mode source.
>> 
>
> They are not supposed to *define* a variable. They are there to tell the
> compiler not to worry. They are somewhat similar[fn:1] to extern declarations
> in C code: whoever needs to use the variable says
>
>   (defvar foo)
>
> There is (supposed to be) *one* place somewhere that actually defines
> it:
>
>   (defvar foo 1)
>
> Nick
>
> Footnotes:
>
> [fn:1] ...for some value of "similar". You have to take this with the
> appropriately sized grain of salt.

Ah, I had no idea how this was actually supposed to work :)
Thanks for the clarification.  I'll rewind to an older commit for now
that works for me ... since I need it at work tomorrow.

Thanks,
Bernt