using symbol-file can be brittle

[MasonProtter]

Julia Snail currently uses symbol-file to locate itself, but that seems to cause trouble. E.g.: radian-software/straight.el#1150 (comment)

[gcv]

Can you try replacing calls to (symbol-file 'julia-snail) with (find-library-name "julia-snail") and check if that works better?

[MasonProtter]

That seems to also not work.

[raxod502]

Why not use load-file-name?

[gcv]

@raxod502: Because load-file-name is always nil in development when I'm changing functions and reloading Elisp source buffers. It feels like it might break in other situations.

Based on the documentation quoted in the Straight ticket, I see why symbol-file doesn't work, but I'm far more confused about why find-library-name fails.

Also, with the Straight changes happening, does Snail have to be modified at all to resolve this?

[raxod502]

I typically use (or load-file-name buffer-file-name) when initializing a variable for the location of my library. It seems to handle all cases both in development and production.

I haven't looked into find-library-name at all so I can't comment on that at the moment.

As far as continuing to use symbol-file... I guess if it works, it works, but I would be worried about it failing in the future because (as documented in the Emacs manual), it is not guaranteed to return an actual filepath, and may just return the library name instead.

[gcv]

(or load-file-name buffer-file-name) doesn't work (1) when it's used in a function that has been redefined, and (2) called when the current buffer is not the one where it was redefined. It probably works most of the time, but I feel like I'll mess up when using it.

@MasonProtter: It looks like I've also used locate-library for this purpose. Not sure why symbol-file ended up the shipping implementation. I have no clue why find-library-name didn't work for you, or what the difference between locate-library and find-library-name might be. For now, I pushed a change replacing symbol-file with locate-library. It seems to work for me. Please try it and let me know.

[raxod502]

(or load-file-name buffer-file-name) doesn't work (1) when it's used in a function that has been redefined, and (2) called when the current buffer is not the one where it was redefined

Right, that's why I define a variable with the value, and then use that variable anywhere I need. It's more performant than scanning load-path at runtime, anyway.

But it is fine either way you prefer to write the code.

[gcv]

Please reopen if this is still something I should look into.