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RE: search-whitespace-regexp
From: |
Drew Adams |
Subject: |
RE: search-whitespace-regexp |
Date: |
Sun, 6 Feb 2005 16:28:33 -0800 |
> > sometimes the actual whitespace matters.
> Right: in *regexp* search.
while people generally expect regexp searches to be a bit fuzzy, they
might expect a non-regexp search to be exact. Since the fuzzy
whitespace matching often "looks" like normal matching (because the
majority of whitespace is in fact a single space), it might take some
time to see what's going on, resulting in some subtle errors.
This is particularly true if one embeds a search inside a keyboard
macro [which I often do].
Plain (incremental) search should be a literal search. Regexp search should
rigorously respect the regexp. People don't expect either to be fuzzy.
The question is "Under what circumstances should typing a space be
interpreted as wanting to search for any amount of whitespace?"
This is unrelated to both plain search and regexp search. You might or might
not want this _input effect_ with either plain or regexp search.
This is akin to word search (as I think someone mentioned). Ultimately, a
word search or a space-means-whitespace search is implemented with a regexp
search - but the point in both cases is to provide a user-friendly way to do
it, instead of requiring users to know about regexps.
By default, neither `C-M-s' nor `C-s' should respect the user-friendly
space-input feature. Or, rather, the default behavior of each should be
determined by a user option - a la case-fold-search. And, regardless of the
value of this option, you should be able to toggle space-means-whitespace
searching from both `C-M-s' and `C-s', via a key sequence.
The question then becomes how to toggle this space-means-whitespace
searching? An obvious candidate is `C-s C-SPC'. (Some will no doubt argue
against this because it means you can't just end a search and set the mark
this way.)
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, (continued)
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Stefan Monnier, 2005/02/04
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Richard Stallman, 2005/02/05
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Chong Yidong, 2005/02/05
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Richard Stallman, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Stefan Monnier, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Miles Bader, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Stefan Monnier, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Miles Bader, 2005/02/06
- RE: search-whitespace-regexp,
Drew Adams <=
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Miles Bader, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Chong Yidong, 2005/02/06
- RE: search-whitespace-regexp, Drew Adams, 2005/02/06
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Andreas Schwab, 2005/02/07
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Richard Stallman, 2005/02/07
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Richard Stallman, 2005/02/07
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Stefan Monnier, 2005/02/07
- Re: search-whitespace-regexp, Miles Bader, 2005/02/07