[Suggestion] New function `sorted-key-descriptions'

[Suggestion] New function `sorted-key-descriptions'

[Wedler, Christoph]

I would like to see the following function defined in Emacs[1]:

(defun sorted-key-descriptions (keys &optional separator)
  "Sort and separate the key descriptions for KEYS.
The sorting is done by length (shortest bindings first), and the bindings
are separated with SEPARATOR (\", \" by default)."
  (mapconcat 'key-description
	     (sort keys #'(lambda (x y)
			    (< (length x) (length y))))
	     (or separator ", ")))

You might argue that these 4 lines are not really worth to make a
function out of it, Emacs should use that code at the 3..5 places where
it is needed, but here are some reasons to make a function out of it:

 1. Such a function helps ensuring a consistent user interface:
    currently, the key distriptions are ordered for icomplete.el, but
    not in `where-is' and `apropos-print'.

 2. The sorting could be made smarter/customizable in the future: e.g.,
    one could imagine that non-console users would prefer to see <right>
    instead C-f as the first binding of `forward-char'.

- Christoph

[1] This function is already defined in XEmacs.

Re: [Suggestion] New function `sorted-key-descriptions'

[Richard Stallman]

    [1] This function is already defined in XEmacs.

That is a good enough reason to add the function, I guess.  Did you
write the code yourself, or did you copy it from XEmacs?  If the
latter, who actually wrote it, and do we have papers from him for it?

RE: [Suggestion] New function `sorted-key-descriptions'

[Wedler, Christoph]

Richard Stallman wrote:

 >     [1] This function is already defined in XEmacs.

 > That is a good enough reason to add the function, I guess.  Did you
 > write the code yourself, or did you copy it from XEmacs?  If the
 > latter, who actually wrote it, and do we have papers from him for it?

The code for `sorted-key-descriptions' is copied from XEmacs:

 - 4 lines function body (the same as part of the code in
   `icomplete-get-keys', also in Emacs)
 - 1 line function head
 - 3 lines docstring

I don't know whether you need papers in this case.  Here is the
corresponding entry in XEMACS/lisp/ChangeLog.1:

1997-07-11  Hrvoje Niksic  <hniksic@srce.hr>
        [...]

	* prim/help.el (sorted-key-descriptions): New function.

CC to Hrvoje Niksic <hrvoje@xemacs.org>.

- Christoph

Re: [Suggestion] New function `sorted-key-descriptions'

[Richard Stallman]

We have papers from Hrvoje, so I we can use his code.
Would someone like to install that function?