Re: can I move back to the last edit position?

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:
> Because Rokia doesn't know until he's already left this position that he
> wants to jump back.  And having to type `C-x r <SPC> R' after every editing
> action is a little irritating, to put it mildly.
>
> It is essential here for the position to be saved automatically.

I'll note that one method I often use to do this is something like:

   C-/ C-e C-/

That is, `undo' (which moves point to the location of the undo edit), a
random movement command to interrupt the undo, and then `undo' again to
reverse the effect of my first undo.

This works pretty well, but of course is a bit weird, and potentially
dangerous (if something happens to interrupt you before you redo the
change).

However, it does suggest a possible implementation for a
`goto-last-edit' command:  just look at the buffer-undo-list variable,
and jump to the first insert/deletion position you find.

Maybe something like this:

   (defun goto-last-edit ()
     "Set point to the location of the last insert or delete in the buffer.
   Uses buffer undo information, so won't work if undo is disabled."
     (interactive)
     (let ((undo-records buffer-undo-list)
           (pos nil))
       (while (and (consp undo-records) (not pos))
         (let ((undo (pop undo-records)))
           (when (and (consp undo) 
                 (or (stringp (car undo)) (integerp (car undo))))
             (setq pos (cdr undo)))))
       (if pos
           (goto-char pos)
         (error "No edits in undo list"))))

-Miles
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