Re: package.el strings

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jean-Christophe Helary <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 23:45:46 +0900
> Cc: address@hidden,
>  address@hidden
> 
>  (defcustom package-archives `(("gnu" .
>  -                               ,(format "http%s://elpa.gnu.org/packages/"
>  -                                        (if (gnutls-available-p) "s" ""))))
>  +                               ,(let ((https 
> "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/";)
>  +                                      (http   
> "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/";))
>  +                                  (if (gnutls-available-p) https http))))
>  +
> 
>  Why did you need this change?
> 
> That's something we discussed last year:
> 
>  On Jul 1, 2017, at 10:56, Jean-Christophe Helary <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>  On Jun 22, 2017, at 10:57, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>  (format "http%s://elpa.gnu.org/packages/"
>                                        (if (gnutls-available-p) "s" ""))
> 
>  Yes, it is. But obviously I think that, since I wrote it.
> 
>  I agree it is acceptable, but this looks like something that might be
>  needed in a number of places, so perhaps we should make a nicer
>  interface to do it.
> 
>  There is only one instance of such a query in package.el and no other 
> package in the emacs distribution
>  seems to use gnutls-available-p to add an "s" to http.
> 
>  Paul suggested that it would be a maintenance hassle to keep 2 almost 
> identical urls if we spelled them
>  out as Yuri suggested but I checked other source packages and for ex 
> auth-source-pass-tests.el
>  explicitly spells out all the urls without resorting to smart formatting to 
> save a few characters.

I don't understand this discussion.  To make things clear, I don't see
why appending "s" to "http" in a format call would be bad in this
case, since "https" is not a plural of "http".

>  -        (message "No packages to upgrade.")
>  +        (message "No packages to upgrade")
> 
>  I think our style is not to include a period in messages.
> 
> I think I removed a period here. What are you referring to?

Oops.