Re: [PATCH] show difference when recovering file

[Wolfgang Jenkner <wjenkner@inode.at>]

On Mon, Dec 17 2012, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> Rather than always popping up a *diff* buffer, we could also change the
> prompt from "yes/no" to "yes/no/diff".

Instead of surprising the user with an additional choice, how about
putting the *Directory* buffer in dired-mode, via dired-virtual from the
dired-x package (which comes with emacs, after all).  The user could
than use = or whatever in the usual way (though the default is to diff
with a backup-file instead of an auto-save file, but that's a SMOP).

Proof of concept below, just to convey the idea.

Wolfgang

=== modified file 'lisp/files.el'
--- lisp/files.el	2012-12-14 18:59:00 +0000
+++ lisp/files.el	2012-12-17 16:57:10 +0000
@@ -5371,6 +5371,8 @@
   (interactive)
   (recover-file buffer-file-name))
 
+(require 'dired-x)
+
 (defun recover-file (file)
   "Visit file FILE, but get contents from its last auto-save file."
   ;; Actually putting the file name in the minibuffer should be used
@@ -5406,7 +5408,8 @@
 		;; The code in v20.x called `ls' directly, so we need
 		;; to emulate what `ls' did in that case.
 		(insert-directory-safely file switches)
-		(insert-directory-safely file-name switches))))
+		(insert-directory-safely file-name switches))
+	      (dired-virtual (file-name-directory file))))
 	   (switch-to-buffer (find-file-noselect file t))
 	   (let ((inhibit-read-only t)
 		 ;; Keep the current buffer-file-coding-system.