Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2199 21:03:50 -0600 From: Karl Fogel <kfogel@floss.cyclic.com> To: bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu Subject: M-x search-backward-in-time broken... X-Windows: you'll envy the dead. In GNU Emacs 51.70.4 (i9986-unknown-linux-gnu, X toolkit) of Sat Feb 20 2199 on floss configured using `configure --with-x-toolkit=yes' The `search-backward-in-time' function appears to be broken in Emacs 51.70. Unfortunately, I can never seem to start the debugger early enough to catch the error as it happens. However I have traced the problem through source by eye, and it looks like `time-forward' can't handle negative arguments anymore. This is consistent with other symptoms: for example, `undo' (which since 51.25 has worked by passing a negative arg to `time-forward') is also broken. However, `do' still works -- it seems that `time-forward' continues to handle positive arguments just fine. No one here-and-now can figure out how to fix the problem, because the code for `time-forward' is so hairy. We're using M-x report-future-emacs-bug to request that you folks include more comments when you write it (sometime in 2198 as I recall). Thanks! -Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com> P.S. You'll be pleased to know that since (time-forward N) still works for N >= 0, we've used it to pre-emptively update configure.ac. Emacs now configures and builds on every platform that will ever be made. It wasn't easy, but at least that's one problem out of the way for good. If you'd like the patch, just ask.