Improve pdumper doc; say unexec is deprecated

Say that pdumping cannot redump unless -batch is used.  Say that
the traditional unexec dumping method is by default not available,
and is deprecated.  Don't call dump files "portable", as dump files
are not any more portable than the Emacs executables themselves.
Just call them "dump files".  Similar, prefer "portable dumper"
(since the dumper code is portable) to "portable dumping" (since
the dump file is not).  Be more systematic about calling them
"dump files" instead of "dumped images" or whatnot.

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/etc/NEWS b/etc/NEWS
index 5378e56bca4..7fd22145821 100644
--- a/etc/NEWS
+++ b/etc/NEWS
@@ -92,11 +92,6 @@ and in particular better supports the Address Space Layout
 Randomization (ASLR) feature, a security technique used by most modern
 operating systems.
 
-Portable dumping can be disabled at configure time via the configure
-option '--with-dumping=unexec' (but we don't recommend that, unless
-the portable dumping doesn't work on your system for some
-reason---please report such systems to the Emacs developers as bugs).
-
 When built with the portable dumping support (which is the default),
 Emacs looks for the 'emacs.pdmp' file, generated during the build, in
 its data directory at startup, and loads the dumped state from there.
@@ -104,6 +99,15 @@ The new command-line argument '--dump-file=FILE' allows to specify a
 non-default '.pdmp' file to load the state from; see the node "Initial
 Options" in the Emacs manual for more information.
 
+An Emacs started via a dump file can create a new dump file only if it
+was invoked with the -batch option.
+
+Although the portable dumper has been tested, it may have a bug on
+unusual platforms.  If you require traditional unexec dumping you can
+use the configure-time option '--with-dumping=unexec'; however, please
+file a bug report describing the situation, as unexec dumping is
+deprecated.
+
 +++
 ** The new configure option '--enable-checking=structs' attempts to
 check that the portable dumper code has been updated to match the last
diff --git a/etc/TODO b/etc/TODO
index b2446b0d917..a065763933f 100644
--- a/etc/TODO
+++ b/etc/TODO
@@ -297,11 +297,7 @@ One way of doing this is to start with fx's dynamic loading, and use it
 to implement things like auto-loaded buffer parsers and database
 access in cases which need more than Lisp.
 
-** Replace unexec with a more portable form of dumping
-See eg https://lists.gnu.org/r/emacs-devel/2014-01/msg01034.html
-       https://lists.gnu.org/r/emacs-devel/2014-06/msg00452.html
-
-One way is to provide portable undumping using mmap (per gerd design).
+** Fix portable dumping so that you can redump without using -batch.
 
 ** Imenu could be extended into a file-structure browsing mechanism
 using code like that of customize-groups.