Re: how-many/count-matches for non-interactive use

[Luc Teirlinck]

Richard Stallman wrote:

         The current behavior has been in place for a
       long time and users have defined (and saved) their keyboard macros to
       work with that behavior.

   Sorry, I do not understand.  In what way would a keyboard macro be
   defined "to work with" the current behavior?  How would anyone have
   defined any keyboard macro differently if interactive-p worked the
   other way.  I do not see it.

When the user currently tests a keyboard macro, he tests it with the
current behavior.  Hence, the current behavior of `interactive-p'
determines whether the macro does what the user wants it to do,
whether it does it fast enough and without negative side effects, like
ruining *Messages*.

   Anything but a progress message should go into *Messages*.

Definitely not.  For instance, messages that are supposed to help the
user decide what to do next are useless during macro execution.  (But
not during macro definition, so I now believe that the current
behavior is completely correct.)

Sincerely,

Luc.