(append-to-file): Doc fix.

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/lisp/ChangeLog b/lisp/ChangeLog
index 33b315367ba..8eb266495d6 100644
--- a/lisp/ChangeLog
+++ b/lisp/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 2009-04-08  Eli Zaretskii  <eliz@gnu.org>
 
+        * files.el (append-to-file): Doc fix.
+
         * term/pc-win.el (msdos-last-help-message): New defvar.
         (msdos-show-help): Use it to avoid saving the last message if it
         was also a help message (Bug#2895).
diff --git a/lisp/files.el b/lisp/files.el
index 7c792c96c52..499948c4176 100644
--- a/lisp/files.el
+++ b/lisp/files.el
@@ -4475,8 +4475,14 @@ Don't call it from programs!  Use `insert-file-contents' instead.
 (defun append-to-file (start end filename)
   "Append the contents of the region to the end of file FILENAME.
 When called from a function, expects three arguments,
-START, END and FILENAME.  START and END are buffer positions
-saying what text to write."
+START, END and FILENAME.  START and END are normally buffer positions
+specifying the part of the buffer to write.
+If START is nil, that means to use the entire buffer contents.
+If START is a string, then output that string to the file
+instead of any buffer contents; END is ignored.
+
+This does character code conversion and applies annotations
+like `write-region' does."
   (interactive "r\nFAppend to file: ")
   (write-region start end filename t))