GNU bug report logs - #79629
31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays using setopt

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays using setopt
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:38:53 -0400

I noticed that I'm unable to customize the holiday-other-holidays
variable using the setopt macro: my change does not seem to take
effect, or perhaps gets "overwritten" somehow.

Currently, the following does not have the intended effect:

    (setopt
     holiday-other-holidays
     '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving")))

With the above in my user-init-file, if I do M-x calendar then
move the cursor to Monday October 13 and press 'h', I do not see
Canadian Thanksgiving as a holiday for that day.

Whereas either of the following snippets work as expected:

    (setq ; before `holidays' is loaded
     holiday-other-holidays
     '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving")))

    (use-package holidays
      :custom
      (holiday-other-holidays
      '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving"))))

The reason I guess my customization may be getting overwritten is that
when setting holiday-other-holidays using setopt, checking the value
of the calendar-holidays variable using describe-variable shows that
the current value of calendar-holidays does not include the Canadian
Thanksgiving, but under the "Original value was" section I see that
the entry for Canadian Thanksgiving was supposedly present.

In GNU Emacs 31.0.50 (build 39, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
 3.24.49, cairo version 1.18.4) of 2025-10-14 built on marita
Repository revision: 171c7fd6df861ab71f6cc8faedb8ff68bfac4bae
Repository branch: master
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Message #8 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50;
 Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays using setopt
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2025 10:25:33 +0300

> From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:38:53 -0400
> 
> I noticed that I'm unable to customize the holiday-other-holidays
> variable using the setopt macro: my change does not seem to take
> effect, or perhaps gets "overwritten" somehow.
> 
> Currently, the following does not have the intended effect:
> 
>     (setopt
>      holiday-other-holidays
>      '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving")))
> 
> With the above in my user-init-file, if I do M-x calendar then
> move the cursor to Monday October 13 and press 'h', I do not see
> Canadian Thanksgiving as a holiday for that day.
> 
> Whereas either of the following snippets work as expected:
> 
>     (setq ; before `holidays' is loaded
>      holiday-other-holidays
>      '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving")))
> 
>     (use-package holidays
>       :custom
>       (holiday-other-holidays
>       '((holiday-float 10 1 2 "Canadian Thanksgiving"))))
> 
> The reason I guess my customization may be getting overwritten is that
> when setting holiday-other-holidays using setopt, checking the value
> of the calendar-holidays variable using describe-variable shows that
> the current value of calendar-holidays does not include the Canadian
> Thanksgiving, but under the "Original value was" section I see that
> the entry for Canadian Thanksgiving was supposedly present.

I think this is because customizing holiday-other-holidays does not
recompute the value of calendar-holidays, which is computed once, when
the package is loaded:

(defcustom calendar-holidays
  (append holiday-general-holidays holiday-local-holidays
          holiday-other-holidays holiday-christian-holidays
          holiday-hebrew-holidays holiday-islamic-holidays
          holiday-bahai-holidays holiday-oriental-holidays
          holiday-solar-holidays)

There's a comment there which says:

  ;; This one should not be autoloaded, else .emacs changes of
  ;; holiday-general-holidays etc have no effect.
  ;; FIXME should have some :set-after.

So maybe this should have a :set-after function.  Or maybe each one of
the defcustom's in the above list, used to compute calendar-holidays
should have a :set function which recomputes calendar-holidays.

Patches welcome.

Message #11 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2025 16:28:30 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

[...]
>
> I think this is because customizing holiday-other-holidays does not
> recompute the value of calendar-holidays, which is computed once, when
> the package is loaded:
>
> (defcustom calendar-holidays
>   (append holiday-general-holidays holiday-local-holidays
>           holiday-other-holidays holiday-christian-holidays
>           holiday-hebrew-holidays holiday-islamic-holidays
>           holiday-bahai-holidays holiday-oriental-holidays
>           holiday-solar-holidays)
>
> There's a comment there which says:
>
>   ;; This one should not be autoloaded, else .emacs changes of
>   ;; holiday-general-holidays etc have no effect.
>   ;; FIXME should have some :set-after.
>
> So maybe this should have a :set-after function.  Or maybe each one of
> the defcustom's in the above list, used to compute calendar-holidays
> should have a :set function which recomputes calendar-holidays.
>
> Patches welcome.

Thanks, Eli; I think that's indeed it.  How about the attached patch?
It seems to work as expected for me.  It adds both :set-after and :set
(I didn't notice a difference with just :set-after).

Two things I wasn't sure about:

- I left the comment above calendar-holidays about not autoloading it,
  since I wasn't sure whether or not with my changes we could autoload
  that variable now without running into the issue described by the
  comment.

- Should I add a ':version "31.1"' for calendar-holidays or is it not
  necessary since its "value" isn't being changed by my patch?

Thanks.

[0001-Recompute-calendar-holidays-when-its-components-are-.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Message #14 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>, Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 09:44:37 +0300

> From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
> Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2025 16:28:30 -0400
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> [...]
> >
> > I think this is because customizing holiday-other-holidays does not
> > recompute the value of calendar-holidays, which is computed once, when
> > the package is loaded:
> >
> > (defcustom calendar-holidays
> >   (append holiday-general-holidays holiday-local-holidays
> >           holiday-other-holidays holiday-christian-holidays
> >           holiday-hebrew-holidays holiday-islamic-holidays
> >           holiday-bahai-holidays holiday-oriental-holidays
> >           holiday-solar-holidays)
> >
> > There's a comment there which says:
> >
> >   ;; This one should not be autoloaded, else .emacs changes of
> >   ;; holiday-general-holidays etc have no effect.
> >   ;; FIXME should have some :set-after.
> >
> > So maybe this should have a :set-after function.  Or maybe each one of
> > the defcustom's in the above list, used to compute calendar-holidays
> > should have a :set function which recomputes calendar-holidays.
> >
> > Patches welcome.
> 
> Thanks, Eli; I think that's indeed it.  How about the attached patch?
> It seems to work as expected for me.  It adds both :set-after and :set
> (I didn't notice a difference with just :set-after).
> 
> Two things I wasn't sure about:
> 
> - I left the comment above calendar-holidays about not autoloading it,
>   since I wasn't sure whether or not with my changes we could autoload
>   that variable now without running into the issue described by the
>   comment.

That comment is clearly from the days when people were using setq to
change user options, so I think it should be left alone.

> - Should I add a ':version "31.1"' for calendar-holidays or is it not
>   necessary since its "value" isn't being changed by my patch?

If the value of the option doesn't change, there's no need to bump its
:version.

I'd ask Stefan to eyeball the patch and provide comments, since
user-option initialization has some black-art aspects I'm not sure I
know enough about.

Thanks.

Message #17 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
To: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 09:30:49 -0400

Hi Amin,

> diff --git a/lisp/calendar/holidays.el b/lisp/calendar/holidays.el
> index 28f3a0ae7f2..50f56ce9d1f 100644
> --- a/lisp/calendar/holidays.el
> +++ b/lisp/calendar/holidays.el
> @@ -38,6 +38,20 @@ holidays
>    :prefix "holidays-"
>    :group 'local)
>  
> +(defvar holidays--calendar-holidays
> +  '( holiday-general-holidays holiday-local-holidays
> +     holiday-other-holidays holiday-christian-holidays
> +     holiday-hebrew-holidays holiday-islamic-holidays
> +     holiday-bahai-holidays holiday-oriental-holidays
> +     holiday-solar-holidays))

Shouldn't this be a `defconst`?

> +(defun holidays--calendar-holidays ()
> +  (apply #'append (mapcar #'symbol-value holidays--calendar-holidays)))
> +
> +(defun holidays--set-calendar-holidays (sym val)
> +  (set sym val)
> +  (setq calendar-holidays (holidays--calendar-holidays)))

But this risks overwriting the user's customization of `calendar-holidays`.
Maybe you need to use `custom-reevaluate-setting` instead.
[ And I suspect that if you do that, you don't need
  `holidays--calendar-holidays` any more.  ]

Another option is to "demote" `calendar-holidays` from a defcustom to
a defvar.

> -;; FIXME should have some :set-after.

FWIW, I think `:set-after` is a hack that's never The Right Solution.

> -(defcustom calendar-holidays
> -  (append holiday-general-holidays holiday-local-holidays
> -          holiday-other-holidays holiday-christian-holidays
> -          holiday-hebrew-holidays holiday-islamic-holidays
> -          holiday-bahai-holidays holiday-oriental-holidays
> -          holiday-solar-holidays)
> +(defcustom calendar-holidays (holidays--calendar-holidays)
>    "List of notable days for the command \\[holidays].
>  
>  Additional holidays are easy to add to the list, just put them in the
> @@ -308,6 +324,7 @@ calendar-holidays
>  with descriptive strings such as
>  
>       (((2 6 1989) \"New Moon\") ((2 12 1989) \"First Quarter Moon\") ... )."
> +  :set-after holidays--calendar-holidays
>    :type 'sexp)

The `:set` you've placed on those other variables should make the
`:set-after` useless.

Also, your patch should probably tweak the wording of the docstring
where it currently says:

    They also initialize the default value of ‘calendar-holidays’,
    which is the default list of holidays used by the function
    ‘holiday-list’ in the non-interactive case.  Note that these
    variables have no effect on ‘calendar-holidays’ after it has been
    set (e.g. after the calendar is loaded).  In that case, customize
    ‘calendar-holidays’ directly.


- Stefan

Message #20 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
To: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:46:52 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Dear Eli, Stefan,

Thank you both for your helpful comments.  I've updated and simplified
my patch accordingly, and I'm attaching the v2 here.  If it looks good
to you I'll go ahead and install it on the master branch.

Thanks again,
amin

[v2-0001-Recompute-calendar-holidays-when-its-components-a.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Message #23 received at 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
To: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, "Edward M. Reingold" <reingold <at> cs.uiuc.edu>,
 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 14:46:38 -0400

> Thank you both for your helpful comments.  I've updated and simplified
> my patch accordingly, and I'm attaching the v2 here.  If it looks good
> to you I'll go ahead and install it on the master branch.

Looks good to me.

BTW, a different approach would be to change (extend) the format of
`calendar-holidays` so it can contain entries that *refer* to the
other variables.  This way, the value of this variable would not need to
change when those other vars are modified, and instead those other vars
would be consulted whenever `calendar-holidays` is used.

There's probably an opportunity to consolidate this with
`holiday-available-holiday-lists` which contains another "list" of
those same variables.


        Stefan

Message #28 received at 79629-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 79629-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org, monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca
Subject: Re: bug#79629: 31.0.50; Cannot customize holiday-other-holidays
 using setopt
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2025 10:39:36 +0300

> From: Amin Bandali <bandali <at> gnu.org>
> Cc: 79629 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:46:52 -0400
> 
> Thank you both for your helpful comments.  I've updated and simplified
> my patch accordingly, and I'm attaching the v2 here.  If it looks good
> to you I'll go ahead and install it on the master branch.

Thanks, installed on the master branch, and closing the bug.

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