From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Chong Yidong Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Isearch in dired Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:55:05 -0500 Message-ID: <87tzadzxdi.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> References: <87zlk90yjb.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> <87ljvssrkb.fsf@jurta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1226444110 4642 80.91.229.12 (11 Nov 2008 22:55:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:55:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Juri Linkov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 11 23:56:10 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L029a-0003RY-2t for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:56:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:54614 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L028S-00025O-8d for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:55:00 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L028O-000256-Hk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:54:56 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L028M-00024m-Gk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:54:55 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=35659 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L028M-00024j-Av for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:54:54 -0500 Original-Received: from cyd.mit.edu ([18.115.2.24]:38478) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1L028K-0000v6-Vj; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:54:53 -0500 Original-Received: by cyd.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 883E157E174; Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:55:05 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <87ljvssrkb.fsf@jurta.org> (Juri Linkov's message of "Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:59:45 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:105587 Archived-At: Juri Linkov writes: >> (1) There is a significant probability that the user might want to >> match the non-file parts. For instance, the user may want to find >> all files modified on a certain date. > > Using isearch to find files with a certain date is not the easiest way > to accomplish this task, especially when the date format is not ISO. > There are better tools like M-( dired-mark-sexp and find-dired > with -mtime and -mmin options. However, isearching dates and other parts > of a dired buffer will still be possible even with context-dependent > isearch - when point initially is not a file name. On the contrary, it is the most intuitive way to search Dired buffers, for anyone who is used to using C-s for buffer navigation. It's also faster, in many cases, than doing M-(. Having this operation fail unexpectedly in Dired would be unfortunate. (Also, gnu ls gives the date in ISO format by default, so that particular objection is a red herring.) > The false matches also include owner and group names, month names in > non-ISO formats, and sometimes even file permissions. Owner and group names, maybe, but I don't think we have to worry about people being getting false search matches for files named `rw-r--r' etc. As for doing a filename search based on the current column, that is a tad more reasonable, but still suffers from the "unexplained behavior" problem. There is simply no visual clue for the user that the "dwim behavior" is taking place, or what rules govern it, so it will seem like Emacs is behaving erratically. Note, also, that upon entering the Dired buffer, point is placed in the filename column by default, so if the user attempts to search for dates with C-s, the search fails by default! So I don't think the dwim behavior should be the default (I support providing it as an option, though).