all messages for Emacs-related lists mirrored at yhetil.org
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>
To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: completing-read return meta-information?
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 08:57:03 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <86y4g6zcuo.fsf@stephe-leake.org> (raw)

I'd like completing-read to be able to return meta-information with the
completion string.

For example, consider completing a file name when there are duplicates:

dir1/
    file1.el
    file2.el

dir2/
    file1.el
    file2.el

The completion function is reading the disk; it knows the absolute path
of the file that the user chooses. However, that information is lost when
completing-read returns just "file1.el<dir1>" (a uniqified file name).

So the caller has to repeat some of the work of the completion function
to use the returned result.

I tried storing the directory info in a text property of the completion
string; that was not returned.

A similar situation occurs when completing in an alist; the completion
function uses assoc to read the alist, but after completing-read
returns, the caller must call assoc again.

`completion-metadata' doesn't seem designed for arbitrary user
information. And I'd rather not have to call the completion table
function again; that would typically require re-computing the
meta-information, or caching it somewhere.

Is there a way to return meta-information?

What would have to be changed in completing-read to make this possible?

-- 
-- Stephe



             reply	other threads:[~2015-09-16 13:57 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2015-09-16 13:57 Stephen Leake [this message]
2015-09-16 15:00 ` completing-read return meta-information? Drew Adams
2015-09-16 17:06   ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-16 17:28     ` Drew Adams
2015-09-16 17:45   ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-17  1:38     ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-17 12:52       ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-17 13:24         ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-17 18:14           ` Dmitry Gutov
2015-09-18  0:54             ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-21 16:46       ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-21 19:12         ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-21 19:51         ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-22 15:21           ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-26 10:54             ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-27 15:45               ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-28  5:50                 ` Dmitry Gutov
2015-09-28 15:59                 ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-28 16:13                 ` Stephen Leake
2015-09-28 19:42                   ` Stefan Monnier
2015-09-28  5:58             ` Dmitry Gutov

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=86y4g6zcuo.fsf@stephe-leake.org \
    --to=stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org \
    --cc=emacs-devel@gnu.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git

This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.