Improve documentation of 'directory-files-and-attributes'

* doc/lispref/files.texi (Contents of Directories): Fix inaccurate
description of the return value of directory-files-and-attributes.

* src/dired.c (Fdirectory_files_and_attributes): Describe the
function's value in more detail.

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/doc/lispref/files.texi b/doc/lispref/files.texi
index f62b670f47f..5137f3a9ab4 100644
--- a/doc/lispref/files.texi
+++ b/doc/lispref/files.texi
@@ -2917,8 +2917,8 @@ are included.
 This is similar to @code{directory-files} in deciding which files
 to report on and how to report their names.  However, instead
 of returning a list of file names, it returns for each file a
-list @code{(@var{filename} . @var{attributes})}, where @var{attributes}
-is what @code{file-attributes} would return for that file.
+list @code{(@var{filename} @var{attributes})}, where @var{attributes}
+is what @code{file-attributes} returns for that file.
 The optional argument @var{id-format} has the same meaning as the
 corresponding argument to @code{file-attributes} (@pxref{Definition
 of file-attributes}).
diff --git a/src/dired.c b/src/dired.c
index c446223a0bc..a753b1930e6 100644
--- a/src/dired.c
+++ b/src/dired.c
@@ -358,7 +358,14 @@ If NOSORT is non-nil, the list is not sorted--its order is unpredictable.
 DEFUN ("directory-files-and-attributes", Fdirectory_files_and_attributes,
        Sdirectory_files_and_attributes, 1, 5, 0,
        doc: /* Return a list of names of files and their attributes in DIRECTORY.
-There are four optional arguments:
+Value is a list of the form:
+
+  ((FILE1 FILE1-ATTRS) (FILE2 FILE2-ATTRS) ...)
+
+where each FILEn-ATTRS is the attributes of FILEn as returned
+by `file-attributes'.
+
+This function accepts four optional arguments:
 If FULL is non-nil, return absolute file names.  Otherwise return names
  that are relative to the specified directory.
 If MATCH is non-nil, mention only file names that match the regexp MATCH.