RE: Isearch: retrieve last successful search string from when you quit (`C-g')

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> I've tested your proposal (I don't need to test the other one, since
> the behavior is pretty obvious).

Good.  Thanks for trying it out.

> I see two problems in your proposal:
> 1. It adds a bit of (unnecesary) user-level complexity: the users has
> to remember whether the search string was accepted (i.e. pushed to the
> search ring) or not, since the way of retrieving it is different in
> each case.
> 2. The user can't  The search string is lost if is not accepted and is
> not the last one.

Agreed.  To me, neither of those is a problem in practice.
But it is well to point them out.

As I said, if the second is really a problem then we could add separate search
rings for such strings.  Having used the feature a bit, I don't really think
that's necessary.  I use `M-g' to retrieve such a string only occasionally, and
the last such string is the one I want, in practice.  YMMV.

> The following approach overcomes these two problems:
> 
> Define a new user-option whereby the user can choose between 
> these 3 behaviors:
> a. Don't remember any cancelled search strings: i.e., the 
> current behavior.
> b. Remember only the last cancelled search string: if the users
> cancels an i-search with `C-g', that search string will be retrieved
> by `C-s C-s' or `C-s M-p' as if it was stored at the top of the search
> ring; but this string will be forgot/removed after the next i-search
> session.
> b. Remember all cancelled search string: any cancelled search string
> will be pushed to the search ring, like the accepted ones.
> 
> I think this approach is simple and flexible.  I would adapt to the
> different usage patterns that people have expressed so far in this
> thread.

None of those 3 does what I proposed and what you tried: be able to _yank_ that
search string anywhere you like into the current search string, as many times as
you like.

Think of what `C-y' does during search - this is similar to that.  (But you can
follow `C-y' with `M-y' to cycle through the kill ring.  My proposal does not
save/retrieve more than the most recent such search string, as you pointed out.)

Anyway, I've explained this enough.  For anyone who wants it there is Isearch+.
Whatever Emacs Dev ends up doing for isearch.el, I hope that at least users will
be able to get the current, traditional behavior back.  And I would hope that
any optional alternative behavior be opt-in rather than opt-out.