bug#31614: Off Topic

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  31614@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 28 May 2018 07:30:11 -0400
> 
> >   4 (#o4, #x4, ?\C-d)
> >
> > In the below, it is not possible to set 
> > `eval-expression-print-maximum-character’ to `nil’ to 
> > achieve the simple `4’ result.
> 
> Oh, I think I intended eval-expression-print-maximum-character to only
> affect the ?\C-d part, e.g., if you set it to 0, you get

Indeed, this feature was only about showing the character, mainly
because for large enough value the display could be annoyingly delayed
while Emacs looks for a suitable font.

>     4 (#o4, #x4)
> 
> But I see there is no way to get a plain '4' except by (setq
> eval-expression-print-maximum-character nil), which is kind of an
> accident.

I don't think it's an accident, I think it's a very useful feature, as
one doesn't need to format the value specially when one needs hex or
octal string representation.