Is there a way to get the last message?

Is there a way to get the last message?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

I know about (current-message).  However, this won't work:

(defun get-last-message ()
  "Try to get the last message."
  (interactive)
  (with-temp-buffer
    (insert (or (current-message) ""))
    (clipboard-kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))

M-x get-last-message puts the empty string into the clipboard and kill
ring.

Apparently `current-message' is cleared before this command has a chance
to get it.  This makes sense, but there is no `previous-message' command.

Is there any way to get the last thing displayed in the echo area (from
`message' or possibly from `error', too)?  This would be quite useful:
one could then paste it to a search engine to look up the internet for
some hints about the error/message.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[Stephen Berman]

On Sun, 28 May 2017 12:50:12 +0200 Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I know about (current-message).  However, this won't work:
>
> (defun get-last-message ()
>   "Try to get the last message."
>   (interactive)
>   (with-temp-buffer
>     (insert (or (current-message) ""))
>     (clipboard-kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))
>
> M-x get-last-message puts the empty string into the clipboard and kill
> ring.
>
> Apparently `current-message' is cleared before this command has a chance
> to get it.  This makes sense, but there is no `previous-message' command.
>
> Is there any way to get the last thing displayed in the echo area (from
> `message' or possibly from `error', too)?  This would be quite useful:
> one could then paste it to a search engine to look up the internet for
> some hints about the error/message.

What about this:

(defun get-last-message ()
  "Try to get the last message."
  (interactive)
  (with-current-buffer "*Messages*"
    (goto-char (point-max))
    (forward-line -1)
    (clipboard-kill-ring-save (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))))

(add-hook 'post-command-hook 'get-last-message)

Steve Berman

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[John Ankarström]

Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net> writes:

> (add-hook 'post-command-hook 'get-last-message)

Wouldn't post-command-hook be a bit overkill here? Personally,
I'd do something like this:

(advice-add #'message :after #'get-last-message)

I'm not 100% sure that `message' is the only function that
creates messages, but that advice should cover most cases.

- John

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[Emanuel Berg]

John Ankarström wrote:

> (advice-add #'message :after
> #'get-last-message)
>
> I'm not 100% sure that `message' is the only
> function that creates messages, but that advice
> should cover most cases.

No, that's OK.

But: does it work when `message' is called
from C?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2017-05-28, at 13:18, Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 28 May 2017 12:50:12 +0200 Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I know about (current-message).  However, this won't work:
>>
>> (defun get-last-message ()
>>   "Try to get the last message."
>>   (interactive)
>>   (with-temp-buffer
>>     (insert (or (current-message) ""))
>>     (clipboard-kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))
>>
>> M-x get-last-message puts the empty string into the clipboard and kill
>> ring.
>>
>> Apparently `current-message' is cleared before this command has a chance
>> to get it.  This makes sense, but there is no `previous-message' command.
>>
>> Is there any way to get the last thing displayed in the echo area (from
>> `message' or possibly from `error', too)?  This would be quite useful:
>> one could then paste it to a search engine to look up the internet for
>> some hints about the error/message.
>
> What about this:
>
> (defun get-last-message ()
>   "Try to get the last message."
>   (interactive)
>   (with-current-buffer "*Messages*"
>     (goto-char (point-max))
>     (forward-line -1)
>     (clipboard-kill-ring-save (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))))

Thanks, I thought about something like that, too.  It has one problem,
though:

(defun long-message ()
  (interactive)
  (message "Long\nmessage"))

Thanks anyway,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[Emanuel Berg]

Stephen Berman wrote:

> What about this:
>
> (defun get-last-message () "Try to get the last
> message." (interactive) (with-current-buffer
> "*Messages*" (goto-char (point-max))
> (forward-line -1) (clipboard-kill-ring-save
> (line-beginning-position)
> (line-end-position))))
>
> (add-hook 'post-command-hook
> 'get-last-message)

Oh, no!

So there were this suggestion already!

Well, hell, anyway I also attempted it:

    (defun get-last-message ()
      (interactive)
      (let ((message-buffer (get-buffer "*Messages*")))
        (when message-buffer
          (with-temp-buffer
            (insert-buffer-substring message-buffer)
            (goto-char (point-max))
            (forward-line -1)
            (let ((start (point-at-bol))
                  (end   (point-at-eol)) )
              (buffer-substring start end) )))))

;; test:
;;
;;   (message "I was afraid you'd be trapped outside the city.")
;;   (message "Hey, I wasn't worried for a microsecond!")
;;   (message "Then you probably didn't understand the situation.")
;;
;; (get-last-message)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[tomas]

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Hash: SHA1

On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 12:50:12PM +0200, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I know about (current-message).  However, this won't work:
> 
> (defun get-last-message ()
>   "Try to get the last message."
>   (interactive)
>   (with-temp-buffer
>     (insert (or (current-message) ""))
>     (clipboard-kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))
> 
> M-x get-last-message puts the empty string into the clipboard and kill
> ring.

This might get you started:

  (defun parrot ()
    (interactive)
    (save-excursion
      (with-current-buffer (messages-buffer)
        ;; *Messages* seems to have a newline at end
        (goto-char (- (point-max) 1))
        (message "last message was '%S'"
                 (buffer-substring-no-properties
                  (line-beginning-position)
                  (line-end-position))))))

A couple of notes:

 - it seems that messages not always end up in the *Messages* buffer
 - the function (messages-buffer) is the recommended was to retrieve
   the messages buffer, which (most of the time? always?) is called
   *Messages*
 - you might want to double check the strategy for fetching the last
   line (i.e. going to point-max - 1
 - I put the thing into a message with (buffer-substring ...), you
   might want to dump it directly into the kill ring, of course

In the meantime, Stephen's reply seems to have addressed most of the
above points, anyway; but the recommended way to access *Messages*
might still be helpful.

Cheers
- -- t
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Re: Is there a way to get the last message?

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:

> Is there any way to get the last thing
> displayed in the echo area (from `message' or
> possibly from `error', too)? This would be
> quite useful: one could then paste it to
> a search engine to look up the internet for
> some hints about the error/message.

In general, I've heard the message utility is
an underpowered feature in Emacs and it is not
beyond reason it could be useful to have a
data structure with messages and some variable
to set its history length. However, lacking
that (?), why not use the message
buffer itself?

Specifically for your proposed use case, this
seems to bit a bit of over-engineering. Do you
really Google error-messages in
such quantities?

What I would do is, first keybind this

    (defun switch-to-messages-buffer ()
      (interactive)
      (switch-to-buffer (messages-buffer))
      (goto-char (point-max)) )

then, in the message buffer, mark the message,
and

    (defun web-search ()
      (interactive)
      (let*((search-engine "Google")
            (search        (get-search-string search-engine)))
        (unless (empty-string-p search)
          (let ((tab-label (format "%s: %s" search-engine search)))
            (w3m-new-tab tab-label)
            (w3m-search w3m-search-default-engine search) ))))

I don't know if you use Emacs-w3m, if you do,
you can get that above code working with some
additional code found here

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/w3m/w3m-unisearch.el

otherwise it should be not that difficult to do
the same with your prefered browser.

Really, to get to the message or error buffer
and mark the message is just a few keystrokes
away; and to be able to Google what is marked
in a buffer (or to use it as indata for
whatever search engine) is a good feature for
not only your proposed use-case but for many
other things as well.

So, as always, it is a good idea to optimize
the specifics and put the creativity into what
is general.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573