From: Zachary Kanfer <zkanfer@gmail.com>
To: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>
Cc: ruijie@netyu.xyz, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,
monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, 62892@debbugs.gnu.org,
mardani29@yahoo.es
Subject: bug#62892: proposal to extend mark-sexp to go forward and backward on command
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 01:28:09 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAFXT+ROcOy8GR1a7mjPFBvhpiJbVqwTo-xMAn8c=jEw2XVB8Ww@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <86ttx19ot4.fsf@mail.linkov.net>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4986 bytes --]
I made some minor changes below. Alongside my suggestions are explanations
as to why. This is a hard command to describe!
> (defun mark-sexp (&optional arg allow-extend)
> "Set mark ARG sexps from point or move mark ARG sexps.
Mark can be moved ARG steps. Press C-M-@ C-M-@ C-u 3 C-M-@. There will be
five total sexps marked. I'm hoping this explains that case as well, and
giving an intuition for what this command does ("move mark ARG steps").
> When invoked interactively without a prefix argument and no active
> region, mark moves one sexp forward.
I moved this first, both because I suspect it's the most common use case,
but also because it's the the simplest to understand.
> When invoked interactively without a prefix argument, and region
> is active, mark moves one sexp away from point (i.e., forward
> if mark is at or after point, back if mark is before point), thus
> extending the region by one sexp.
> With ALLOW-EXTEND non-nil (interactively, with prefix argument),
> the place mark goes is the same place \\[forward-sexp] would move
> with the same value of ARG; if the mark is active, it moves ARG
> sexps from its current position, otherwise it is set ARG sexps
> from point.
Moved this earlier to keep the entire interactive block together.
> When the region is active, the direction the region is extended
> depends on the relative position of mark and point. This means the
> direction can be changed by pressing \\[exchange-point-and-mark]
> before this command..
I moved this to a separate section to simplify the earlier parts, and to
call out that this is possible whenever the region is active.
> When called from Lisp with ALLOW-EXTEND omitted or nil, mark is
> set ARG (defaulting to 1) sexps from point.
Removed extra m from "omitted".
> This command assumes point is not in a string or comment."
Altogether, the docstring with my suggestions looks like:
> (defun mark-sexp (&optional arg allow-extend)
> "Set mark ARG sexps from point or move mark ARG sexps.
> When invoked interactively without a prefix argument and no active
> region, mark moves one sexp forward.
> When invoked interactively without a prefix argument, and region
> is active, mark moves one sexp away from point (i.e., forward
> if mark is at or after point, back if mark is before point), thus
> extending the region by one sexp.
> With ALLOW-EXTEND non-nil (interactively, with prefix argument),
> the place mark goes is the same place \\[forward-sexp] would move
> with the same value of ARG; if the mark is active, it moves ARG
> sexps from its current position, otherwise it is set ARG sexps
> from point.
> When the region is active, the direction the region is extended
> depends on the relative position of mark and point. This means the
> direction can be changed by pressing \\[exchange-point-and-mark]
> before this command.
> When called from Lisp with ALLOW-EXTEND omitted or nil, mark is
> set ARG (defaulting to 1) sexps from point.
> This command assumes point is not in a string or comment."
This is a complicated command, for sure -- which is partially why I want
simple functions to mark sexps forward and backward: to not have to think
about different cases. Can we fork off a discussion about those functions?
Having simple functions allows the user to do what they want without having
to learn complex nuance.
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 2:14 PM Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> wrote:
> > I tried to describe the behavior in the doc string as follows:
> >
> > (defun mark-sexp (&optional arg allow-extend)
> > "Set mark ARG sexps from point or move mark one sexp.
> > When called from Lisp with ALLOW-EXTEND ommitted or nil, mark is
> > set ARG sexps from point; ARG defaults to 1.
> > With ALLOW-EXTEND non-nil (interactively, with prefix argument),
> > the place mark goes is the same place \\[forward-sexp] would move
> > with the same value of ARG; if the mark is active, it moves ARG
> > sexps from its current position, otherwise it is set ARG sexps
> > from point; ARG defaults to 1.
> > When invoked interactively without a prefix argument and no active
> > region, mark moves one sexp forward.
> > When invoked interactively without a prefix argument, and region
> > is active, mark moves one sexp away of point (i.e., forward
> > if mark is at or after point, back if mark is before point), thus
> > extending the region by one sexp. Since the direction of region
> > extension depends on the relative position of mark and point, you
> > can change the direction by \\[exchange-point-and-mark].
> > This command assumes point is not in a string or comment."
> >
> > It is still somewhat complicated and confusing, but at least it's
> > accurate, I think.
>
> mark-sexp has a counterpart mark-word that has almost the same
> implementation and docstring. So this could be fixed in both places.
>
[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5728 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2023-04-28 5:28 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-04-17 2:25 bug#62892: proposal to extend mark-sexp to go forward and backward on command Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-17 3:06 ` Ruijie Yu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-04-20 5:25 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-20 7:16 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-04-21 5:04 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-21 6:07 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-04-21 7:24 ` Eshel Yaron via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-04-21 9:51 ` Visuwesh
2023-04-21 13:10 ` Stefan Monnier via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-04-23 5:33 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-25 22:26 ` Daniel Martín via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-04-26 4:41 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-26 6:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-04-27 2:37 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-04-27 12:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-04-27 18:12 ` Juri Linkov
2023-04-28 5:28 ` Zachary Kanfer [this message]
2023-05-06 8:49 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-04-28 17:04 ` Juri Linkov
2023-04-28 19:28 ` Drew Adams
2023-05-04 4:48 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-08 12:28 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-18 3:17 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-18 6:52 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-21 5:46 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-21 5:58 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-21 14:31 ` Stefan Monnier via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-05-21 14:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-21 14:54 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-21 14:56 ` Eshel Yaron via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-05-21 15:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-21 15:41 ` Eshel Yaron via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-05-22 22:02 ` Richard Stallman
2023-05-23 14:11 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-25 22:32 ` Richard Stallman
2023-05-26 6:06 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-31 3:23 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-31 12:01 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-06-01 3:54 ` Stefan Monnier via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2023-06-01 6:32 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-05-03 6:10 ` Zachary Kanfer
2023-05-03 17:29 ` Juri Linkov
2023-04-17 7:11 ` Juri Linkov
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to='CAFXT+ROcOy8GR1a7mjPFBvhpiJbVqwTo-xMAn8c=jEw2XVB8Ww@mail.gmail.com' \
--to=zkanfer@gmail.com \
--cc=62892@debbugs.gnu.org \
--cc=eliz@gnu.org \
--cc=juri@linkov.net \
--cc=mardani29@yahoo.es \
--cc=monnier@iro.umontreal.ca \
--cc=ruijie@netyu.xyz \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).