bug#12535: 24.2.50; [PATCH] `edmacro-parse-keys' is incorrect for M-<TAB>

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 09:13:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: npostavs@gmail.com, 12535@debbugs.gnu.org, larsi@gnus.org
> 
> > > If so, that's incorrect - the bug is still present.
> > 
> > Btw, I'm not sure I agree with the proposed fix: <TAB> and TAB are
> > different keys.
> 
> Yes, but then why wouldn't we also consider <ESC> and
> ESC to be different keys?

Because they aren't.

TAB is the ASCII character Ctrl-I, whereas <TAB> is the _function_ key
Tab.  Modern keyboards can produce both, and Emacs maps the latter to
the former.  But there's no function key Esc on the keyboard.

> Likewise, all the others in the same clause:
> 
> "\\<\\(NUL\\|RET\\|LFD\\|ESC\\|SPC\\|DEL\\)$"

We do have the same situation with DEL vs <Delete> and <Backspace>.
But not with the others you mention.

> Why, for all of those, does Emacs consider <WORD> and
> WORD to be the same key, where WORD is any of those
> ASCII control-char names (NUL, RET, LFD, ESC, SPC, DEL),
> but it doesn't consider <TAB> and TAB to be the same key.

You are missing the point: the brackets is not some syntactic sugar,
it is an indication of a function key, like <F1> and <DOWN>.