From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Apropos commands and regexps Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 01:00:53 -0600 (MDT) Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <200205150700.g4F70rr16163@aztec.santafe.edu> References: <5xbsbj9834.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1021446194 29932 127.0.0.1 (15 May 2002 07:03:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 07:03:14 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@is.elta.co.il, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 177soc-0007mf-00 for ; Wed, 15 May 2002 09:03:14 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 177t01-0004VY-00 for ; Wed, 15 May 2002 09:15:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 177soo-0006Pw-00; Wed, 15 May 2002 03:03:26 -0400 Original-Received: from pele.santafe.edu ([192.12.12.119]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 177smM-0006CU-00; Wed, 15 May 2002 03:00:54 -0400 Original-Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id g4F70rk19010; Wed, 15 May 2002 01:00:53 -0600 (MDT) Original-Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.10.2+Sun/8.9.3) id g4F70rr16163; Wed, 15 May 2002 01:00:53 -0600 (MDT) X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@aztec using -f Original-To: kfs@cua.dk In-Reply-To: <5xbsbj9834.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> (no-spam@cua.dk) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:3952 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:3952 I think giving the apropos commands a keyword based interface is a good way to accomplish (a), and having an specific apropos-keywords command breaks (b). Are you suggesting all apropos commands should work by keywords instead of by regexps? Your "all permutations" seems useful -- but I wonder whether it is overkill... So my idea of just searching for any entry matching at least two keywords will find all the entries found by searching for all combinations - and it may find some entries the user didn't think about... What exactly is the difference between these two alternatives? That isn't clear to me. The obvious problem restricting this to complete words is how to make e.g. "list process" match "list-processes". That is a good point. We want the specified keywords to match subsets of words in the command name. I wonder if the `apropos keyword' command being discussed could maintain a list of common `equivalents', and try substituting some if the original apropos doesn't return anything useful (or maybe even if returns only a few matches). That is a natural extension. Looking for an equivalent in this list should work by substring match too. And if an equivalent is found, searching for it in command names or elsewhere should also use substring match.