Re: [PATCH] Add file-ring to dired-aux.el

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Justin Fields <justinlime1999@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2024 03:11:23 -0500
> 
> From ca8f28008aeb95e74a0b5de28445cc25602ab724 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Justin Fields <justinlime1999@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2024 22:54:57 -0500
> Subject: [PATCH] Dired-Aux: add file ring to dired

Thanks.  Some comments below.  If someone else has comments, please
post them.

> +;;; File ring
> +(defvar dired-file-ring nil
> +  "Captured dired files.")

Why do you call this a "ring"?  AFAICT, it is a simple list, created
and used as such.

> +(defun dired-file-ring-execute (action action-name file-list)
> +  "Execute a function to run for every item in the FILE-LIST.

The first line of a doc string should preferably mention all of the
mandatory arguments.

> +Argument ACTION argument to call with `dired-create-files' with as
> +its' FILE-CREATOR.

This reads awkwardly due to lack of punctuation.  Our usual style is
to say

  ACTION is passed to `dired-create-files' as its FILE-CREATOR
  argument.

Same comment for the other arguments.

> +Argument ACTION-NAME The name of the action, used for logging.

This should say "...for error logging by `dired-create-files'.", so
that readers could look up that logging.

> +  (dired-create-files action action-name file-list
> +    (lambda (file) (concat default-directory (file-name-nondirectory (directory-file-name file)))))

Why does this use 'concat' instead of 'expand-file-name'?

> +(defun dired-file-ring-capture ()
> +  "Capture marked Dired files to the file ring."
> +  (interactive)
> +  (mapc (lambda (file) (add-to-list 'dired-file-ring file)) (dired-get-marked-files))
> +  (message "Captured %s Files. %s files are present in the file ring" (length (dired-get-marked-files)) (length dired-file-ring)))

This will say "Captured 1 Files", which is incorrect English.  Please
use ngettext to do this better.

My suggestion is to rephrase this message to say something like

  %s files now in `file-ring', %s added

This makes the message much shorter and easier to understand, IMO.

> +(defun dired-file-ring-move ()
> +  "Move the file/s from the file ring to current dir.

By "current dir" do you mean default-directory?  We don't use the term
"current directory" in Emacs because Emacs pretends that each buffer
has its own "current directory".

> +This action clears the file ring."
> +  (interactive)
> +  (dired-file-ring-execute #'rename-file "MOVE" dired-file-ring)
> +  (dired-file-ring-clear))

What happens with files in subdirectories, e.g., if the user typed 'i'
before marking files?  Does this command create the corresponding
subdirectories in the default-directory when it moves the files?

> +(defun dired-file-ring-copy ()
> +  "Copy the file/s from the file ring to current dir."
> +  (interactive)
> +  (dired-file-ring-execute #'dired-copy-file "COPY" dired-file-ring))

Same question here.

> +(defun dired-file-ring-symlink ()
> +  "Create a symlink for the the file/s from the file ring to current dir."
> +  (interactive)
> +  (dired-file-ring-execute #'make-symbolic-link "SYM-LINK" dired-file-ring))
> +
> +(defun dired-file-ring-symlink-relative ()
> +  "Create a relative symlink for the the file/s from the file ring to current dir."
> +  (interactive)
> +  (dired-file-ring-execute #'dired-make-relative-symlink "RELATIVE SYM-LINK" dired-file-ring))

The doc strings of these two commands should be more explicit
regarding which file is the symlink and what will be its target.

This feature, when installed, will need a NEWS entry.

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