Re: How to change definition of gnus-summary-exit?

[Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>]

Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> writes:

>>>> What is happening here?  Why does the help refer me to the modified
>>>> version, but the version in memory is actually the original one?  And
>>>> how do I tell emacs/gnus to use my version?
>>
>> Why do you copy the complete gnus-sum.el when you just want to
>> change one function?  As a result, you won't see any future changes of
>> gnus-sum.el (bugfixes and new features).
>
> Not quite, the 'modified version' is actually a clone of the gnus git
> repo.

Ah, I see.  Well, then I'd just use the complete git version if I were
you.

>> What do you want to change exactly?  Oftentimes, a simple advice will
>> do without having to override the complete function.
>
> What's an advice (in this context)?

An advice is a function which is run before, after, instead of, or
"around" some other function.  See (info "(elisp)Advising Functions").

>> Indeed, if Nikolaus copied both gnus-sum.el and gnus-sum.elc into his
>> other directory, then modified gnus-sum.el but didn't recompile it, and
>> additionally `load-prefer-newer' is nil, that would explain the issue.
>
> Thanks, that was it!

Wow, my crystal ball is working perfectly today! :-)

> I was assuming that Emacs would automatically ignore the .elc file if
> the .el file was newer.

It doesn't do so probably for backwards compatibility reasons.  But
there's the new variable `load-prefer-newer' for controlling that
behavior.

Bye,
Tassilo