Re: xref-query-replace-in-results error message after xref-find-definitions, was: Re: bug#58158: 29.0.50; [overlay] Interval tree iteration considered harmful

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2022 15:44:18 +0300
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> 
> On 11.10.2022 15:17, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> >>> Its problem is that it
> >>> states the fact, but doesn't attempt to explain it, and thus doesn't
> >>> give a clue what the user did wrong and how to fix that.
> >>
> >> How does one explain that we cannot replace in xref-find-definitions
> >> results?
> > 
> > That's what the "subset of matches of identifier" part attempts to do.
> 
> A high-level and not very accurate description, because it's only 
> relevant for the difference between xref-find-definitions vs 
> xref-find-references, but not when the *-find-regexp commands come into 
> play.

I know.  As I said, suggestions for better wording will be moist
welcome.

> But we can try to be helpful by offering an alternative:
> 
>    Cannot replace in this search; to rename a symbol, invoke 
> \\[xref-find-references] first

But then we'd need to name the other 2 commands as well, to be
accurate, yes?

> >> Perhaps I should remind that xref-find-definitions is still the main
> >> exception -- where this command doesn't work.
> > 
> > But not the only one?
> 
> The only known one, so far.

So maybe just saying

  Cannot do global replacement using results of \\[xref-find-definitions]

should be okay?

> That would mean that one 'r' can work in lsp-mode's 
> xref-find-definitions results (they define a bunch of custom commands 
> like lsp-find-definition and lsp-find-declaration, but that probably 
> doesn't matter). Not sure if we should do something about that.

If 'r' happens to work in that case, we don't have to worry about the
error message, right?