emacs - elisp warning "reference to free variable" -

i wandering how rid of elisp warning. setup following:

i have init.el file sets "emacs-root" variable:

;; root of emacs-related stuff (defvar emacs-root    (if (or (eq system-type 'cygwin)       (eq system-type 'gnu/linux)       (eq system-type 'linux)       (eq system-type 'darwin))         "~/.emacs.d/"    "z:/.emacs.d/"      "path emacs configuration root is.")) 

then in init.el have

;; load plugins el-get (require 'el-get-settings) 

in el-get-settings.el loading packages el-get , appending "el-get/el-get" folder load-path:

 ;; add el-get load path, , install if doesn't exist  (add-to-list 'load-path (concat emacs-root "el-get/el-get")) 

the problem have lips warning on 'emacs-root' in last expression add-to-list : "reference free variable 'emacs-root'"

what doing wrong here , there way make compiler happy?

this setup works ok btw - don't have issues during load time, annoying warning.

regards, roman

when compiling file reference variable emacs-root, variable must defined. easiest way avoid warning add

(eval-when-compile (defvar emacs-root)) ; defined in ~/.init.el 

in el-get-settings.el before offending form.

alternatively, can move defvar init.el el-get-settings.el.

note can use eval-when-compile in defvar speed-up loading compiled file (of course, if that, should not copy compiled file between platforms):

(defvar emacs-root   (eval-when-compile     (if (or (eq system-type 'cygwin)             (eq system-type 'gnu/linux)             (eq system-type 'linux)             (eq system-type 'darwin))         "~/.emacs.d/"         "z:/.emacs.d/"))   "path emacs configuration root is.") 

note original defvar emacs-root in question if broken, sets variable emacs-root "path emacs configuration root is." on windows.