4

For:

(defun my-ag/font-lock-extend-region ()
  (save-excursion
    (goto-char font-lock-beg)
    (forward-line 2)
    (setq font-lock-beg (point))))

I've got:

Warning: reference to free variable 'font-lock-beg'
Warning: assignment to free variable 'font-lock-beg'

Documentation says:

font-lock-extend-region-functions is a variable defined in ‘font-lock.el’.

Each function is called with no argument; it is expected to adjust the
dynamically bound variables ‘font-lock-beg’ and ‘font-lock-end’; and return
non-nil if it did make such an adjustment.

Usual solution (defvar ...) make this variables globally visible and may hide bugs.

How should I mask "reference/assignment to free variable" warning during compilation if variable is dynamically bounded?

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3
  • 2
    These variables are defvared in font-lock.el, so it is safe for you to do so too. Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 21:56
  • 1
    "(defvar ...)[...] may hide bugs" - what kind of bugs are you thinking of? Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 22:48
  • 1
    As @sds said, these are global variables, declared as such in font-lock.el. If you load font-lock.el[c] before byte-compiling then you will see no such warning. Put (require 'font-lock) in your file that you're byte-compiling, and the warnings should go away. Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 0:46

1 Answer 1

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6

Assuming you are using lexical binding, if the variable is dynamic, then it must be defvar'd (to ensure that lexical binding cannot treat it otherwise). AFAIK it would be a bug to not use defvar.

For a variable foo defined by some other library, you need only use:

(defvar foo)

to mark it as special/dynamic.

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1
  • Thanks for pointing to lexical vs dynamic binding. Now I see that dynamically bounded variables should be defvar. Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 6:20

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