Locally modify the syntax-table via text-properties

Question

I’m trying to make a particular exclamation point behave like a word constituent (from the point of view of the syntax table), using the syntax-table text property, but I can’t get it to work.

In an empty buffer I write an exclamation mark and then evaluate the command (add-text-properties 1 2 '(syntax-table (2))). I think this is what I’m supposed to do. But describe-char on the exclamation mark shows

            character: ! (displayed as !) (codepoint 33, #o41, #x21)
[…]
               syntax: .    which means: punctuation
[…]
There are text properties here:
  syntax-table         (2)

Note that the text property has been applied, but it is still considered a punctuation character. What am I missing? Do I need to call a function to update it somehow? Other text properties (for instance display) are applied automatically.

Answer 1

As mentioned by Tobias, you generally need

(set (make-local-variable 'parse-sexp-lookup-properties) t)

in order for those properties to have an effect. The reason for it is probably historical and linked to performance, and nobody bothered to try and change it since.

Notice that syntax-table text properties are usually set via syntax-propertize-function, in which case syntax-propertize will take it upon itself to set parse-sexp-lookup-properties for you, which is why you don't usually see major modes setting this var explicitly.