The docstring of with-timeout says that If we give up, we run the TIMEOUT-FORMS and return the value of the last one. The call should look like: (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...) However, it just throws away the result of TIMEOUT-FORMS (with-timeout (0.1 t) (sleep-for 10) nil) => nil Here is a patch to fix this. 2006-07-25 Daiki Ueno <ueno(a)unixuser.org&gt; * timer-funcs.el (with-timeout): Return the result of TIMEOUT-FORMS if the timeout expires. xemacs-packages source patch: Diff command: cvs -q diff -u Files affected: xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/timer-funcs.el Index: xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/timer-funcs.el =================================================================== RCS file: /pack/xemacscvs/XEmacs/packages/xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/timer-funcs.el,v retrieving revision 1.2 diff -u -r1.2 timer-funcs.el --- xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/timer-funcs.el 11 Oct 2005 11:21:41 -0000 1.2 +++ xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/timer-funcs.el 25 Jul 2006 08:45:26 -0000 ＠＠ -182,14 +182,14 ＠＠ `(let ((with-timeout-tag (cons nil nil)) with-timeout-value with-timeout-timer) (unwind-protect - (when (catch with-timeout-tag + (if (catch with-timeout-tag (progn (setq with-timeout-timer (start-itimer "with-timeout" #'with-timeout-handler ,seconds nil nil t with-timeout-tag)) (setq with-timeout-value (progn ,＠body)) nil)) - ,＠timeout-forms + ,＠timeout-forms with-timeout-value) (delete-itimer with-timeout-timer))))) -- Daiki Ueno