bug with file name completing

bug with file name completing

[Werner LEMBERG]

[CVS 2005-06-27]

Create an empty directory `foo' in the current directory, then put two
empty files `bar.ps' and `bar.pdf' into it.  If using, say,
`insert-file', completing in the minibuffer doesn't work as expected.
Pressing `foo/', then <TAB>, Emacs incorrectly completes to
`foo/bar.ps' while it should be `foo/bar.p' only, and repeated
pressing of <TAB> should offer a menu with both `bar.ps' and
`bar.pdf' as possible completions.

I consider this as a serious bug of the file name completion since it
isn't obvious for the user that `foo/bar.pdf' exists at all.


    Werner

Re: bug with file name completing

[Andreas Schwab]

Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> writes:

> Create an empty directory `foo' in the current directory, then put two
> empty files `bar.ps' and `bar.pdf' into it.  If using, say,
> `insert-file', completing in the minibuffer doesn't work as expected.
> Pressing `foo/', then <TAB>, Emacs incorrectly completes to
> `foo/bar.ps' while it should be `foo/bar.p' only, and repeated
> pressing of <TAB> should offer a menu with both `bar.ps' and
> `bar.pdf' as possible completions.

completion-ignored-extensions is a variable defined in `C source code'.
Its value is 
(".svn/" "CVS/" ".o" "~" ".bin" ".lbin" ".so" ".a" ".ln" ".blg" ".bbl" ".elc" ".lof" ".glo" ".idx" ".lot" ".dvi" ".fmt" ".tfm" ".pdf" ".class" ".fas" ".lib" ".mem" ".x86f" ".sparcf" ".fasl" ".ufsl" ".fsl" ".dxl" ".pfsl" ".dfsl" ".lo" ".la" ".gmo" ".mo" ".toc" ".aux" ".cp" ".fn" ".ky" ".pg" ".tp" ".vr" ".cps" ".fns" ".kys" ".pgs" ".tps" ".vrs" ".pyc" ".pyo")


Documentation:
*Completion ignores filenames ending in any string in this list.
Directories are ignored if they match any string in this list which
ends in a slash.
This variable does not affect lists of possible completions,
but does affect the commands that actually do completions.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: bug with file name completing

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > Create an empty directory `foo' in the current directory, then put
> > two empty files `bar.ps' and `bar.pdf' into it.  If using, say,
> > `insert-file', completing in the minibuffer doesn't work as
> > expected.  Pressing `foo/', then <TAB>, Emacs incorrectly
> > completes to `foo/bar.ps' while it should be `foo/bar.p' only, and
> > repeated pressing of <TAB> should offer a menu with both `bar.ps'
> > and `bar.pdf' as possible completions.
> 
> completion-ignored-extensions is a variable defined in `C source code'.
> Its value is 
> (".svn/" "CVS/" ".o" "~" ".bin" ".lbin" ".so" ".a" ".ln" ".blg" ".bbl" ".elc" ".lof" ".glo" ".idx" ".lot" ".dvi" ".fmt" ".tfm" ".pdf" ".class" ".fas" ".lib" ".mem" ".x86f" ".sparcf" ".fasl" ".ufsl" ".fsl" ".dxl" ".pfsl" ".dfsl" ".lo" ".la" ".gmo" ".mo" ".toc" ".aux" ".cp" ".fn" ".ky" ".pg" ".tp" ".vr" ".cps" ".fns" ".kys" ".pgs" ".tps" ".vrs" ".pyc" ".pyo")

Thanks, I wasn't aware of it.


    Werner

Re: bug with file name completing

[Richard M. Stallman]

This is the completion-ignored-extensions feature at work.
.pdf is ignored; .ps is not, because (the idea is) that's a language
people sometimes edit.

In fact, nearly all .ps files are generated by programs, just as .pdf
files are.  Should we add .ps to completion-ignored-extensions?

Re: bug with file name completing

[Juri Linkov]

> This is the completion-ignored-extensions feature at work.
> .pdf is ignored; .ps is not, because (the idea is) that's a language
> people sometimes edit.
>
> In fact, nearly all .ps files are generated by programs, just as .pdf
> files are.  Should we add .ps to completion-ignored-extensions?

There are not many reasons to treat .ps differently than .pdf
nowadays.  So I think the question is whether to add them both to
completion-ignored-extensions or to remove them both from it.

I want to remind that completion-ignored-extensions is used also by
dired to display files with these extensions in a different face.
There is actually no problem to have .ps and .pdf files name displayed
differently than other files, but what is bad is that dired-x uses
completion-ignored-extensions to omit files from dired buffers.
.ps, .pdf and .dvi files contain the resulting material that users
very likely may want to view via external programs calling a shell
command on them.  So removing them from the dired buffer is not
a good choice.  Omitting the files in dired-x is controlled by the
variable dired-omit-extensions created from the value of
completion-ignored-extensions.  I suggest to remove .pdf and .dvi
from the default value dired-omit-extensions.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: bug with file name completing

[Juri Linkov]

> This is the completion-ignored-extensions feature at work.
> .pdf is ignored; .ps is not, because (the idea is) that's a language
> people sometimes edit.
>
> In fact, nearly all .ps files are generated by programs, just as .pdf
> files are.  Should we add .ps to completion-ignored-extensions?

BTW, there is "CVS/" in completion-ignored-extensions by default,
but no "RCS/" and ",v".  Should these extensions be added too?

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: bug with file name completing

[Richard M. Stallman]

I don't try to maintain dired-x.
I don't even want to know what's in it.

Re: bug with file name completing

[Richard M. Stallman]

    BTW, there is "CVS/" in completion-ignored-extensions by default,
    but no "RCS/" and ",v".  Should these extensions be added too?

I am not sure why we wanted to ignore the CVS directory, so I am not
sure whether to ignore the RCS directory.  I think ignoring ,v is a
good idea.

Re: bug with file name completing

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Richard M. Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>
> Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 14:16:40 -0400
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
>     BTW, there is "CVS/" in completion-ignored-extensions by default,
>     but no "RCS/" and ",v".  Should these extensions be added too?
> 
> I am not sure why we wanted to ignore the CVS directory, so I am not
> sure whether to ignore the RCS directory.

The RCS directory holds files that are very different from CVS: the
latter has only Entries and Root, which are of no importance to users,
while the former includes master files for the files under the
configuration control.