Re: Backslash-escaped brackets in string literals

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Mattias Engdegård <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 16:12:51 +0100
> 
>    • If a line in a documentation string begins with an
>      open-parenthesis, write a backslash before the open-parenthesis,
>      like this:
> 
>           The argument FOO can be either a number
>           \(a buffer position) or a string (a file name).
> 
>      This prevents the open-parenthesis from being treated as the start
>      of a defun (*note Defuns: (emacs)Defuns.).
> 
> First of all, is this still true?

Not really, but I'd hesitate to remove this, see below.

> I rarely bother escaping brackets in doc strings and it doesn't seem to cause 
> any editing confusion.

Try "C-x 4 a" in a function with such a doc string, but without the
escape, and you will see confusion.

I don't think we should remove the escapes in column zero, at least
not yet.  The changes which made them not 100% required are too young,
and I expect many people to edit new sources with old Emacsen (I do
that all the time).

Thanks.