Following up on Ben and Steve's sleuthing. lisp/ChangeLog addition: 2004-01-08 Ben Wing <ben(a)xemacs.org&gt; * code-files.el (load): File positions are 0 based not 1 based. Thanks to Steve Youngs. 21.4 source patch: Diff command: cvs -q diff -u Files affected: lisp/code-files.el Index: lisp/code-files.el =================================================================== RCS file: /pack/xemacscvs/XEmacs/xemacs/lisp/code-files.el,v retrieving revision 1.7.2.2 diff -a -u -u -r1.7.2.2 code-files.el --- lisp/code-files.el 2002/04/30 16:05:34 1.7.2.2 +++ lisp/code-files.el 2005/01/09 00:26:01 ＠＠ -284,7 +284,7 ＠＠ (set-buffer (get-buffer-create " *load*")) (erase-buffer) (let ((coding-system-for-read 'raw-text)) - (insert-file-contents path nil 1 3001)) + (insert-file-contents path nil 0 3000)) (find-coding-system-magic-cookie)) (if elc ;; if reading a byte-compiled file and we didn't find