Re: find-file-noselect needs save-match-data

[Richard Stallman]

    >     Anyway, such a function should likely _return_ the corresponding
    >     match-data (rather than setting a global variable to it), and things
    >     like match-beginning should optionally take an argument for this
    >     particular match-data.

    Then what's the advantage compared to using save-match-data?

This function would be simpler, and probably noticeably faster, than

    (save-match-data
       (string-match X Y)
       (match-data))

You have a valid point that this function would be somewhat
slower than a similar function which returned only the position
of the start of the match.  I am not sure whether this speed
difference is significant.  Would someone like to try
implementing those two functions, and see how they compare
in speed to the expression above?