RE: C-x C-f, Tab (in)completion and visiting the wrong, new files

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

> I've got several files in my directory:
> foo.tex  foo.aux  foo.pdf  foo.1.tex  bar.txt
>
> I do: C-x C-f fo <TAB> <RET>
>
> What happens then is that only "foo." is in the minibuffer, and a
> buffer visiting the non-existant file of that name is visited.

I disagree with your proposal, David. Being able to use lax completion, for
file names and for other things, is very useful. I would not want to see
that behavior changed.

However, what I think should happen in the case you mention, and what
happens by default in Icicles, is that TAB immediately displays
*Completions*, which lets you know that completion is incomplete and lets
you see the matching candidate names of the existing files.

In Icicles, an option, `icicle-TAB-shows-candidates-flag', controls this.
Non-nil (the default value) means that TAB always shows the matching
candidates; nil means follow the standard Emacs behavior.

But in neither case (nil or non-nil) is lax completion foregone and strict
completion imposed. I would not want C-x C-f to assume that you want to
visit an existing file.