Re: Two problems with directory-local variables

[Juri Linkov]

>> When I tried [add-dir-local-variable] it correctly added
>>   ((nil
>>     (eval message "hello")))
>
> On this note, while I don't use the commands myself, I've often wished
> that add-dir-local-variable would generate the dotted-pair syntax,
> because I've often seen confusion about the syntax of dir-locals arising
> from dotted vs non-dotted possibilities, and I feel strongly that the
> dotted syntax is the most readable for these files.
>
> i.e. To my mind, (eval message "hello") is liable to confuse people,
> whereas (eval . (message "hello")) is rather clear.
>
> Of course we wouldn't want this to end up in the file either:
> (eval . (message . ("hello" . nil)))
>
> I guess we'd need some code to only 'dot' the high level elements,
> but not the values.
>
> I don't suppose anything like that already exists?

I don't know if something exists that could allow printing dotted syntax for

  (pp-to-string '(eval message "hello"))

In its implementation I see the references to print-escape-newlines
and print-quoted, but there is no print-dotted.