Re: find-file and backward-kill-word

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

   When I run find-file I get a prompt like this:

   Find file: /tmp/reinhard/

   I can edit everything on the right to the space after the colon.  For
   instance, beginning-of-line moves the cursor to the first slash.

   So far so good.  But if I then run the command backward-kill-word
   (M-DEL), the cursor moves to the "f" of the word "file" and I get the
   message

   Text is read-only: #<buffer  *Minibuf-1*>

That is not a bug.  You are right after the prompt: `Find file: '.
`backward-kill-word' kills the preceding word, in this case `file: '.
Of course, `file: ' is read-only, so it can not be deleted.  But it is
copied to the kill ring, which in certain situations could be useful.
The cursor moves to the `f' to allow a following `backward-kill-word'
to prepend `Find ' to the kill-ring entry, which would then be `Find file: '.

See `(emacs)Killing' for details.

Sincerely,

Luc.