auto completion in version control

auto completion in version control

[Sebastian Luque]

Hello,

Is it possible to enable auto completion when visiting a particular
version of a file under version control?  So when I do `C-x v ~ [TAB]' I
get an completion list as when visiting any other file?

TIA,

-- 
Sebastian P. Luque

Re: auto completion in version control

[Stefan Monnier]

> Is it possible to enable auto completion when visiting a particular
> version of a file under version control?  So when I do `C-x v ~ [TAB]' I
> get an completion list as when visiting any other file?

This feature is currently missing in VC.  Which revision control system are
you using and what kind of completion do you expect (on N.M revision numbers
as used in RCS, SCC, and CVS, completion doesn't seem very useful.

Also with a remote CVS repository, the need to contact the repository may
make completion too slow to be useful.

If you're using CVS, you can try PCL-CVS where you can do:

   C-u b <revision-with-completion> RET o

to visit a file, just like C-x v ~ would in VC.


        Stefan

Re: auto completion in version control

[Sebastian Luque]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

[...]

> This feature is currently missing in VC.  Which revision control system are
> you using and what kind of completion do you expect (on N.M revision numbers
> as used in RCS, SCC, and CVS, completion doesn't seem very useful.

I'm using RCS and what I'd like to see is an autocompletion list showing
which versions of a file are available, just as you showed in your example
below.  The reason is that when doing C-x v ~ you have to know the exact
version number you want to visit.  Having to go to the RCS directory to
get this info is extremely inefficient.


> Also with a remote CVS repository, the need to contact the repository may
> make completion too slow to be useful.

> If you're using CVS, you can try PCL-CVS where you can do:

> C-u b <revision-with-completion> RET o

> to visit a file, just like C-x v ~ would in VC.


Thank you,

-- 
Sebastian P. Luque

Re: auto completion in version control

[Stefan Monnier]

>> This feature is currently missing in VC.  Which revision control system are
>> you using and what kind of completion do you expect (on N.M revision numbers
>> as used in RCS, SCC, and CVS, completion doesn't seem very useful.

> I'm using RCS and what I'd like to see is an autocompletion list showing
> which versions of a file are available, just as you showed in your example
> below.  The reason is that when doing C-x v ~ you have to know the exact
> version number you want to visit.  Having to go to the RCS directory to
> get this info is extremely inefficient.

So you actually want completion on the N.M ????
I never thought someone might want to do that.
Could you explain why that'd be useful?
I mean, give a completion list of revision numbers, how are you going to
know which one you want?  It seems to me you always need to find this number
based on some external info (e.g. the log output), so completion won't help
much will it?


        Stefan

Re: auto completion in version control

[Sebastian Luque]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

[...]

> So you actually want completion on the N.M ????
> I never thought someone might want to do that.
> Could you explain why that'd be useful?

If you have to go to a log file to know which version you want, then it's
useless.  But usually I have this situation: I'm editing a file and need
to check what some section was like, say, 2 or 3 versions before the last
one.  No need to go to a log file.  Are there better ways to do that than
to have an autocompletion list?


Cheers,

-- 
Sebastian P. Luque

Re: auto completion in version control

[Stefan Monnier]

>> So you actually want completion on the N.M ????
>> I never thought someone might want to do that.
>> Could you explain why that'd be useful?

> If you have to go to a log file to know which version you want, then it's
> useless.  But usually I have this situation: I'm editing a file and need
> to check what some section was like, say, 2 or 3 versions before the last
> one.  No need to go to a log file.  Are there better ways to do that than
> to have an autocompletion list?

Oh, I see.  In C-x v = you can just do M-n to get the "current" revision an
then edit it.  With C-x v ~ you can't do that because it doesn't provide
a default.

Wait, no, I still don't quite understand: the current revision is visible in
the modeline of the corresponding buffer, so there's still no need for
a completion list to figure out what's the revision number corresponding to
"2 or 3 revisions ago".

Anyway, I see your point.  In other revision control systems like Arch or
Darcs, revision names aren't nearly as concise as N.M and completion makes
a lot of sense there.  So this feature will be added at some point, but
it'll apparently be *after* Emacs-22.


        Stefan