Re: Adding support for xref jumping to headers/interfaces

[Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>]

On 28/11/2023 01:25, João Távora wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 6:12 PM Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> wrote:
> 
>> There are also abstract method definitions in C++ and so on.
> 
> No, there aren't.  You probably mean "(pure) virtual member function".
> And yes, I can assure you that's the jargon that professional and aspiring
> C++ developers prefer when communicating with colleagues and compilers,
> certainly not wishy-washy Javaisms.

My deepest apologies.

>> What goes for declarations in a lot of cases will also be "definitions
> of some sort".
> 
> But if you squint hard enough, everything's "definition".  In fact,
> definition definition definition.  Definition?  Definition!

Unless it's a reference (call site of a function or a place where a 
variable's value is looked up; or referred to in a doc). So yes, these 
are basically two categories of xrefs we distinguish: definitions (only 
one or a few of them for a given name; usually want to jump to one) and 
references (usually many of them for a given name; and we would often 
want to see the full list, to read or search/replace against it).

So in that terminology, both declarations and implementations are "kinds 
of definitions".

If there are suggestion for replacement of that term, I'm happy to discuss.

>> If you don't like "definitions" in "xref-show-definitions-function",
>> then it would need to be a term that describes "special kind of
>> cross-references". Probably referring to the kinds of locations those
>> cross-references point to (which determines the optimal UI).
> 
> I'm fine with that name myself, it's specifically for xref
> -find-definitions, right?

And for declarations/implementations, and so on. Again, 
xref-find-all-definitions might be renamed, but what it does by default 
is find all definition-looking sites for the entity at point. Which 
seems useful enough to me. And which also implies that "references" of 
any sort should not be in that list.

Just to reiterate: xref-find-all-definitions calls xref--show-defs which 
displays the results using xref-show-definitions-function.

> I just find it nonsensical to use that
> to justify the "definitions" in your proposed xref-find-all-definitions
> which potentially serves to find C declarations, C++ deduction
> guides, Elisp feature-providing forms, CL macroexpansion loci,
> etc, etc.  I've given plenty of alternatives.

The only alternative I remember you suggesting is using "xrefs", which 
was missing the point.