; compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist order comment

diff --git a/lisp/progmodes/compile.el b/lisp/progmodes/compile.el
index b18eb81fee144a1fd0a32de89419a13b18f812c1..e31af774bd0daea81097a5080cec4c88783829cf 100644 (file)
--- a/lisp/progmodes/compile.el
+++ b/lisp/progmodes/compile.el
@@ -194,6 +194,11 @@ and a string describing how the process finished.")
 
 (defvar compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist
  (eval-when-compile
+   ;; The order of this list is the default order of items in
+   ;; `compilation-error-regexp-alist' which is also the matching order,
+   ;; so don't add things in alphabetic order just out of habit.
+   ;; FIXME: We should sort it by frequency (less often used ones in the back),
+   ;; but individual patterns also have their own partial order.
   `((absoft
      "^\\(?:[Ee]rror on \\|[Ww]arning on\\( \\)\\)?[Ll]ine[ \t]+\\([0-9]+\\)[ \t]+\
 of[ \t]+\"?\\([a-zA-Z]?:?[^\":\n]+\\)\"?:" 3 2 nil (1))