can't tell if one is searching with appended whitespace

can't tell if one is searching with appended whitespace

[Dan Jacobson]

Gentlemen, looking in the minibuffer, how can you tell the difference between
I-search: bla
and
I-search: bla 
Therefore, something must be done about it.
Why, one could miss important stuff if one doesn't realize he is
carrying around an appended blank in his search string!
Perhaps do something with color, or a " $" appearing, or turn on
show-trailing-whitespace in the minibuffer by default.
(setq-default show-trailing-whitespace t in .emacs isn't good enough.)

Re: can't tell if one is searching with appended whitespace

[Kevin Rodgers]

Dan Jacobson wrote:
 > Gentlemen, looking in the minibuffer, how can you tell the difference between
 > I-search: bla
 > and
 > I-search: bla
 > Therefore, something must be done about it.
 > Why, one could miss important stuff if one doesn't realize he is
 > carrying around an appended blank in his search string!
 > Perhaps do something with color, or a " $" appearing, or turn on
 > show-trailing-whitespace in the minibuffer by default.
 > (setq-default show-trailing-whitespace t in .emacs isn't good enough.)

That may be because trailing whitespace is not highlighted when point is
at the end of a line in any buffer, even if the line is terminated by a
newline (and thus there is at least 1 [possibly empty] subsequent line).

Or perhaps that point is moot, because isearch.el displays the search
string in the echo area, not in the minibuffer (if so, perhaps the
message function should be changed to respect show-trailing-whitespace).

-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: can't tell if one is searching with appended whitespace

[Juri Linkov]

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> writes in bug-gnu-emacs:
> Dan Jacobson wrote:
>  > Gentlemen, looking in the minibuffer, how can you tell the difference between
>  > I-search: bla
>  > and
>  > I-search: bla 
>  > Therefore, something must be done about it.
>  > Why, one could miss important stuff if one doesn't realize he is
>  > carrying around an appended blank in his search string!
>  > Perhaps do something with color, or a " $" appearing, or turn on
>  > show-trailing-whitespace in the minibuffer by default.
>  > (setq-default show-trailing-whitespace t in .emacs isn't good enough.)
>
> That may be because trailing whitespace is not highlighted when point is
> at the end of a line in any buffer, even if the line is terminated by a
> newline (and thus there is at least 1 [possibly empty] subsequent line).
>
> Or perhaps that point is moot, because isearch.el displays the search
> string in the echo area, not in the minibuffer (if so, perhaps the
> message function should be changed to respect show-trailing-whitespace).

I suspect it would be very annoying when trailing whitespace will be
highlighted in all messages.  But highlighting it only in failed
isearch (i.e. in the message "Failing I-search: ...") may be good.
Or another solution is to add explicit text about whitespace as the
suffix of the failed string.  I included both solutions below:

Index: lisp/isearch.el
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/emacs/emacs/lisp/isearch.el,v
retrieving revision 1.228
diff -u -r1.228 isearch.el
--- lisp/isearch.el	6 Jun 2004 13:57:39 -0000	1.228
+++ lisp/isearch.el	7 Jun 2004 00:29:14 -0000
@@ -1764,7 +1786,13 @@
   (let ((cursor-in-echo-area ellipsis)
 	(m (concat
 	    (isearch-message-prefix c-q-hack ellipsis isearch-nonincremental)
-	    isearch-message
+	    (if (and (not isearch-success)
+                     (string-match " +$" isearch-message))
+                (concat
+                 (substring isearch-message 0 (match-beginning 0))
+                 (propertize (substring isearch-message (match-beginning 0))
+                             'face 'trailing-whitespace))
+              isearch-message)
 	    (isearch-message-suffix c-q-hack ellipsis)
 	    )))
     (if c-q-hack
@@ -1806,7 +1834,10 @@
   (concat (if c-q-hack "^Q" "")
 	  (if isearch-invalid-regexp
 	      (concat " [" isearch-invalid-regexp "]")
-	    "")))
+	    "")
+          (if (and (not isearch-success)
+                   (string-match " $" isearch-message))
+              "[whitespace]")))
 
 \f
 ;; Searching

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: can't tell if one is searching with appended whitespace

[Richard Stallman]

    I suspect it would be very annoying when trailing whitespace will be
    highlighted in all messages.  But highlighting it only in failed
    isearch (i.e. in the message "Failing I-search: ...") may be good.

Could people please try that change for a week and then we
can discuss whether we like it?