bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Reuben Thomas]

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In some files (e.g. in text files using newline as a paragraph delimiter)
one can get matches in very long lines that can occupy several screenfuls.
These are not always straightforward to avoid. There's no way to tell (GNU)
grep to truncate its output; perhaps Emacs could help here, by being able
to specify a maximum length of match to show? For bonus points, show part
of the line that matches, with ellipses, rather than just truncating the
line; but even without that it would be useful, provided that the
truncation is clearly marked: the annoyance and slowness of navigating
*grep* buffers full of enormous matches which are almost always not what
one is looking for would be great!

(I just managed to work around one source, minified Javascript mixed in
with non-minified files, by omitting *.min.js in the list of files grep
should ignore, but this is not always easy either: sometimes one might only
have the minified form to hand, and might want to grep it e.g. while
debugging.)

-- 
http://rrt.sc3d.org

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bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Stefan Monnier]

>>>>> "Reuben" == Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:

> In some files (e.g. in text files using newline as a paragraph delimiter)
> one can get matches in very long lines that can occupy several screenfuls.
> These are not always straightforward to avoid. There's no way to tell (GNU)
> grep to truncate its output; perhaps Emacs could help here, by being able
> to specify a maximum length of match to show? For bonus points, show part
> of the line that matches, with ellipses, rather than just truncating the
> line; but even without that it would be useful, provided that the
> truncation is clearly marked: the annoyance and slowness of navigating
> *grep* buffers full of enormous matches which are almost always not what
> one is looking for would be great!

FWIW, I have the following in my ~/.emacs:

   (defun sm-compilation-mode-hook ()
     (setq truncate-lines t))
   (add-hook 'compilation-mode-hook #'sm-compilation-mode-hook)


-- Stefan

bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Reuben Thomas]

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On 6 August 2014 18:44, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> >>>>> "Reuben" == Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:
>
> > In some files (e.g. in text files using newline as a paragraph delimiter)
> > one can get matches in very long lines that can occupy several
> screenfuls.
> > These are not always straightforward to avoid. There's no way to tell
> (GNU)
> > grep to truncate its output; perhaps Emacs could help here, by being able
> > to specify a maximum length of match to show? For bonus points, show part
> > of the line that matches, with ellipses, rather than just truncating the
> > line; but even without that it would be useful, provided that the
> > truncation is clearly marked: the annoyance and slowness of navigating
> > *grep* buffers full of enormous matches which are almost always not what
> > one is looking for would be great!
>
> FWIW, I have the following in my ~/.emacs:
>
>    (defun sm-compilation-mode-hook ()
>      (setq truncate-lines t))
>    (add-hook 'compilation-mode-hook #'sm-compilation-mode-hook)
>

That's ingenious, obvious, and thanks very muchious.

-- 
http://rrt.sc3d.org

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bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Stefan Kangas]

Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:

> On 6 August 2014 18:44, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>
>  >>>>> "Reuben" == Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:
>
>  > In some files (e.g. in text files using newline as a paragraph delimiter)
>  > one can get matches in very long lines that can occupy several screenfuls.
>  > These are not always straightforward to avoid. There's no way to tell (GNU)
>  > grep to truncate its output; perhaps Emacs could help here, by being able
>  > to specify a maximum length of match to show? For bonus points, show part
>  > of the line that matches, with ellipses, rather than just truncating the
>  > line; but even without that it would be useful, provided that the
>  > truncation is clearly marked: the annoyance and slowness of navigating
>  > *grep* buffers full of enormous matches which are almost always not what
>  > one is looking for would be great!
>
>  FWIW, I have the following in my ~/.emacs:
>
>     (defun sm-compilation-mode-hook ()
>       (setq truncate-lines t))
>     (add-hook 'compilation-mode-hook #'sm-compilation-mode-hook)
>
> That's ingenious, obvious, and thanks very muchious.

Did that resolve the problem, or is there anything more to do here?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Reuben Thomas via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

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That worked, thanks!

-- 
https://rrt.sc3d.org

On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 19:39 Stefan Kangas, <stefan@marxist.se> wrote:

> Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:
>
> > On 6 August 2014 18:44, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> >
> >  >>>>> "Reuben" == Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:
> >
> >  > In some files (e.g. in text files using newline as a paragraph
> delimiter)
> >  > one can get matches in very long lines that can occupy several
> screenfuls.
> >  > These are not always straightforward to avoid. There's no way to tell
> (GNU)
> >  > grep to truncate its output; perhaps Emacs could help here, by being
> able
> >  > to specify a maximum length of match to show? For bonus points, show
> part
> >  > of the line that matches, with ellipses, rather than just truncating
> the
> >  > line; but even without that it would be useful, provided that the
> >  > truncation is clearly marked: the annoyance and slowness of navigating
> >  > *grep* buffers full of enormous matches which are almost always not
> what
> >  > one is looking for would be great!
> >
> >  FWIW, I have the following in my ~/.emacs:
> >
> >     (defun sm-compilation-mode-hook ()
> >       (setq truncate-lines t))
> >     (add-hook 'compilation-mode-hook #'sm-compilation-mode-hook)
> >
> > That's ingenious, obvious, and thanks very muchious.
>
> Did that resolve the problem, or is there anything more to do here?
>
> Best regards,
> Stefan Kangas
>

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bug#18209: Add ability to truncate long grep matches

[Stefan Kangas]

Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:

> That worked, thanks!

Thanks! Closing.