Chat wrote:

The Badger <badgy@example.com> writes:

Hi,

I wanted to be able to insert the word at point into the minibuffer.  This is
useful when doing, for example, M-x query-replace on the word at point.  You
run the query-replace, hit a key to put the current word into the minibuffer,
and go from there.  Quite often I want to do this, so it saves time over typing
the word in over and over.

My solution is presented below.  However, can this be done out of the box in
Emacs?  The less custom code I have to write, the better.  God knows I have
enough of that in Emacs already.


(defun badger-minibuffer-yank-word ()
 "Insert into the minibuffer the word at point in the selected
window.  If invoked outside of the minibuffer, throw an error.

A good way to use this function is to bind it to a key in
mini-buffer-local-map, like so:

 (define-key
   minibuffer-local-map (kbd \"C-w\") 'njs-buffer-yank)

If point is not at a word, throw an error."

 (interactive)
 (insert (njs-call-in-buffer (lambda () (thing-at-point 'word))
                             (window-buffer (minibuffer-selected-window))))
  (save-excursion
    (set-buffer (window-buffer (minibuffer-selected-window)))
    (thing-at-point 'word)))
(define-key minibuffer-local-map (kbd "M-w") 'badger-minibuffer-yank-word)

Isn't it simpler to copy the text you want while in the buffer and then
invoke the command? Or even easier to use, write another function that calls
query-replace (or whatever command you want to call)?

Copying the text, running (for example) query-replace, then pasting the text requires the following steps:

C-M-SPC            ;; mark-sexp
M-w            ;; kill-ring-save
M-%            ;; query-replace
C-y            ;; yank
RET            ;; newline

Running the command, then hitting my custom M-w key, requires the following steps:

M-%            ;; query-replace
M-C-w            ;; badger-minibuffer-yank-sexp
RET            ;; newline

So, there's 2 extra steps in there. Not a big deal, but I also tend to invoke query-replace before I select the query text. Perhaps that's because I think in English where the verb comes first in "replace dog with cat"?

Also, regarding writing another function that calls query-replace; that's a good idea, but I'm happy with my solution so far. I guess I just want to be able to yank the word at point into the minibuffer - this is re-usable in many situations - rather than a cooler, more souped-up query-replace.