Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Peter S Galbraith]

Hello,

For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.  e.g.

To: p.gal[TAB]
->
To: p.galbraith
->
To: p.galbraith, psg[TAB]
->
To: p.galbraith, psg@home

Does anyone now of such code already existing?

There's multi-prompt.el bundled with AUC-TeX that comes close (doesn't
allow whitespace after the field separator), but I need something I can
use in MH-E without external packages.

Thanks,
-- 
Peter S. Galbraith, MH-E developer  <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net>
GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE  6E68 8170 35FF 799E
6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Kai Großjohann]

Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net> writes:

> For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
> completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.

I think Gnus just has people hit RET after each item.  Entering an
empty item terminates the sequence.  (Gnus has the same problem for
the Newsgroups header.)

Does this help?

kai
-- 
~/.signature is: umop ap!sdn    (Frank Nobis)

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Peter S Galbraith]

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Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de> wrote:

> Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net> writes:
> 
> > For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
> > completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.
> 
> I think Gnus just has people hit RET after each item.  Entering an
> empty item terminates the sequence.  (Gnus has the same problem for
> the Newsgroups header.)
> 
> Does this help?

Sort of, thanks.

I really would prefer comma separation within a single prompt.  It's a
lighter to use interface.

Peter

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net> writes:
> I really would prefer comma separation within a single prompt.  It's a
> lighter to use interface.

Emacs has the `crm' library that provides completing-read-multiple.
Should be exactly what you're looking for.


        Stefan

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Peter S Galbraith]

Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com> <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> wrote:

> >>>>> "Peter" == Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net> writes:
> > I really would prefer comma separation within a single prompt.  It's a
> > lighter to use interface.
> 
> Emacs has the `crm' library that provides completing-read-multiple.
> Should be exactly what you're looking for.

:-)

It is _exactly_ what I wanted.  Thanks!

Peter

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Klaus Berndl]

On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Peter S. Galbraith wrote:



>  Hello,
>  
>  For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
>  completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.  e.g.
>  
>  To: p.gal[TAB]
>  ->
>  To: p.galbraith
>  ->
>  To: p.galbraith, psg[TAB]
>  ->
>  To: p.galbraith, psg@home
>  
>  Does anyone now of such code already existing?
>  
>  There's multi-prompt.el bundled with AUC-TeX that comes close (doesn't
>  allow whitespace after the field separator), but I need something I can
>  use in MH-E without external packages.

Hmm, i do not know if i understand your problem in the right way...Do you want
this completion in the minibuffer or is it more like dabbrev-completion in a
"normal" buffer?
Even more: What should be the domain of the completion, i.e. the set of
allowed completions??

If you are searching for something in the minibuffer, here is a function:

,----
| ;; stolen from query.el and slightly enhanced
| (defun ecb-query-string (prompt choices &optional other-prompt)
|   "Prints PROMPT and returns a string which must be one of CHOICES.
| CHOICES is either a list of strings whereas the first choice is the default
| \(which is returned if the user simply types RET) or nil \(then only a simple
| RET quits the query and returns nil). If OTHER-PROMPT is not nil and a string
| then the choice \"other\" is added to CHOICES and after selecting this choice
| the user is prompted with OTHER-PROMPT to insert any arbitrary string."
|   (let* ((new-choices (if other-prompt
|                           (add-to-list 'choices "other" t)
|                         choices))
|          (default (car new-choices))
|          answer)
|     (setq prompt (concat prompt
|                          " ["
|                          (if new-choices
|                              (mapconcat (function (lambda (x) x))
|                                         new-choices ", ")
|                            "RET")
|                          "] "))
|     (setq new-choices (nconc (mapcar (function (lambda (x) (list x t)))
|                                      new-choices)
|                              '('("" t))))
|     (setq answer (completing-read prompt new-choices nil t ""))
|     (cond ((string= answer "")
|            (setq answer default))
|           ((string= answer "other")
|            (setq answer (read-string (concat other-prompt ": ")))))
|     answer))
`----

Klaus

-- 
Klaus Berndl			mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
sd&m AG				http://www.sdm.de
software design & management
Thomas-Dehler-Str. 27, 81737 München, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Peter S Galbraith]

Klaus Berndl <Klaus.Berndl@sdm.de> wrote:

> >  For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
> >  completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.  e.g.
> 
> Hmm, i do not know if i understand your problem in the right way...Do
> you want this completion in the minibuffer or is it more like
> dabbrev-completion in a "normal" buffer? 

minibuffer completion, with a comma to separate items to completion.

>                                           Even more: What should be
> the domain of the completion, i.e. the set of allowed completions??

Exactly like completing-read, an alist of allowed completions.
 
> If you are searching for something in the minibuffer, here is a function:
> 
> ,----
> | ;; stolen from query.el and slightly enhanced
> | (defun ecb-query-string (prompt choices &optional other-prompt)

Thanks, but this isn't what I'm looking for at all.

Peter

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Kai Großjohann]

Peter S Galbraith <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net> writes:

> For MH-E, I'm looking for code already available in Emacs to do
> completing-read for multiple comma-separated items.  e.g.

The documentation for completing-read mentions that TABLE can also be
a function `that does the completion itself'.  Alas, I couldn't find
any more info.

But maybe you could write a dummy function that invokes debug, then
you can see which arguments are passed to the function.

kai
-- 
~/.signature is: umop ap!sdn    (Frank Nobis)

Re: Any standard function to prompt for multiple comma-separated items?

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de> writes:
> The documentation for completing-read mentions that TABLE can also be
> a function `that does the completion itself'.  Alas, I couldn't find
> any more info.

There's more info in the docstring of all-completions, try-completion,
and test-completion (you might not have this last one yet).
And there might also be more info in the elisp manual, of course.


        Stefan