Re: [Adrian Robert] Status of cc-mode Objective-C patch?

Re: [Adrian Robert] Status of cc-mode Objective-C patch?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Adrian,

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 07:28:27PM +0700, Adrian Robert wrote:

> Hi,

> I'm still wondering if its syntax highlighting portion (colorize
> portions of the selector in method calls) could be considered for the
> future, e.g. 23.2.  Alan, you had some reservations and we were going
> to post to emacs-devel for feedback, but it never happened.  Maybe I
> could create a new patch based off the new mainline with just that
> portion, post it to emacs-devel, and that could be a starting point
> for discussion?

> FWIW, most other major editors for Objective C include or will  
> include this type of highlighting, as shown by the links below.  On  
> the other hand, BBEdit and Apple's Xcode are prominent exceptions.

Fontifying a use of a variable, as contrasted with its definition (for
fairly inclusive values of "variable") has never been an Emacs standard.
However, quite a few people over the years have asked for this sort of
thing in CC Mode.  Maybe the Right Thing would be to formulate exactly
what "variable" uses could be usefully fontified, and introduce a new
user option (?c-fontify-class-name-use-flag, or the like) to enable this
fontification.  I don't feel there would be all that many distince cases
to consider.

> nano: https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?6631

> vim: http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/ 
> 9d8792f3c32364c0

> SubEthaEdit: http://www.codingmonkeys.de/blog/articles/2006/03/20/ 
> subethaedit-and-objective-c

> TextMate: http://macromates.com/

> thanks,
> Adrian

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [Adrian Robert] Status of cc-mode Objective-C patch?

[Adrian Robert]

On May 16, 2009, at 6:05 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 07:28:27PM +0700, Adrian Robert wrote:
>
>> I'm still wondering if its syntax highlighting portion (colorize
>> portions of the selector in method calls) could be considered for the
>> future, e.g. 23.2.
>>   ...
>
> Fontifying a use of a variable, as contrasted with its definition (for
> fairly inclusive values of "variable") has never been an Emacs  
> standard.
> However, quite a few people over the years have asked for this sort of
> thing in CC Mode.  Maybe the Right Thing would be to formulate exactly
> what "variable" uses could be usefully fontified, and introduce a new
> user option (?c-fontify-class-name-use-flag, or the like) to enable  
> this
> fontification.  I don't feel there would be all that many distince  
> cases
> to consider.

Ah, I see what you are saying here -- there's no fontifying of  
variable uses or function names in CC mode languages.  Even though,  
in lisp, property names are highlighted (e.g., (foo :bar 1)), in XML  
modes attribute names, in Makefile, shell script, Tcl, and Perl,  
variable uses, it might be best to keep this under tighter control in  
C-like languages due to their different nature.

Would using the existing decoration level scheme be inappropriate?