Re: before-string property has no effect if display property is empty string

[Richard Stallman]

I don't believe in "documenting bugs".  Bugs should be fixed,
not treated as permanent.

Would someone please debug this?


    The documentation leads me to believe that the before-string and
    display properties of an overlay should be orthogonal.  However, the
    before-string is not displayed if the display property is the empty
    string.

    Reproduce by evaluating this code:

      (let ((buf (get-buffer-create "foo")))
        (with-current-buffer buf
          (display-buffer buf)
          (erase-buffer)
          (dolist (o (overlays-in (point-min) (point-max)))
            (delete-overlay o))
          (insert "ABC")
          (let ((o (make-overlay 2 3))
                (s (make-string 3 ?X)))
            (overlay-put o 'display "")
            (overlay-put o 'before-string s))))

    You will see the foo window pop up and in the window you     will see
    AC.  I expected that instead AXXXC would be shown.

    > Does the same happen for the after-string?

    It works fine with after-string.