bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

[Eric Hanchrow]

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I don't know if this is a bug, but it's disappointing and inconvenient.

Start emacs with -Q, and type into the *scratch* buffer these 10 characters:

    I ate this

Now do C-a to move point to the beginning of the line.

Now replace the symbol "i" with "u":

   M-s _ i M-% u RET !

So far, so good: we are looking at

   U at this

which is correct.

Now try to repeat the replacement:

   C-a M-% RET !

This changes the "i" in "this" to a u, even though that "i" isn't an
independent symbol.  I was hoping that it would do nothing.



In GNU Emacs 25.1.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
 of 2017-01-12 built on dev-dsk-erichan-2b-i-833ca944.us-west-2.amazon.com
Repository revision: f0eb70d8935be90f7c03e187c12d9b60e7214cc6
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Wrote
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bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

[Juri Linkov]

> I don't know if this is a bug, but it's disappointing and inconvenient.
>
> Start emacs with -Q, and type into the *scratch* buffer these 10 characters:
>
>     I ate this
>
> Now do C-a to move point to the beginning of the line.
>
> Now replace the symbol "i" with "u":
>
>    M-s _ i M-% u RET !
>
> So far, so good: we are looking at
>
>    U at this
>
> which is correct.
>
> Now try to repeat the replacement:
>
>    C-a M-% RET !
>
> This changes the "i" in "this" to a u, even though that "i" isn't an
> independent symbol.  I was hoping that it would do nothing.

Thanks for the feature request, or you might call it a bug
since it doesn't do what you expect.

We discussed this for isearch a while ago, where the proposal was
for ‘C-s C-s’ to reuse the search type from a previous search.
You rightfully want the same for ‘M-% RET’ to reuse a previous
replacement type.

The main problem in https://debbugs.gnu.org/22479 was to find a suitable
data structure complementary to the existing history lists to keep
search/replacement meta-data as well.

bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

[Juri Linkov]

> I don't know if this is a bug, but it's disappointing and inconvenient.
>
> Start emacs with -Q, and type into the *scratch* buffer these 10 characters:
>
>     I ate this
>
> Now do C-a to move point to the beginning of the line.
>
> Now replace the symbol "i" with "u":
>
>    M-s _ i M-% u RET !
>
> So far, so good: we are looking at
>
>    U at this
>
> which is correct.
>
> Now try to repeat the replacement:
>
>    C-a M-% RET !
>
> This changes the "i" in "this" to a u, even though that "i" isn't an
> independent symbol.  I was hoping that it would do nothing.

But what if you mistakenly invoked the replacement in wrong mode,
and want to repeat the same replacement in the right one?  E.g.
first entered replacement strings in regexp replacement mode:

C-M-% i RET u RET

and then realized you want apply the same replacement strings
in word mode:

C-u M-% RET

Should it perform word replacement as explicitly stated
by the prefix arg C-u, or use a previous replacement type
(in this case, regexp replacement) remembered in the
replacement history?

bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

[Eric Hanchrow]

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Hm, I wasn't aware that M-% interprets the prefix arg to mean "word
replace".  My instinct says it should honor the explicit C-u.

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 12:09 AM Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> wrote:

> I don't know if this is a bug, but it's disappointing and inconvenient.
>
> Start emacs with -Q, and type into the *scratch* buffer these 10
characters:
>
>     I ate this
>
> Now do C-a to move point to the beginning of the line.
>
> Now replace the symbol "i" with "u":
>
>    M-s _ i M-% u RET !
>
> So far, so good: we are looking at
>
>    U at this
>
> which is correct.
>
> Now try to repeat the replacement:
>
>    C-a M-% RET !
>
> This changes the "i" in "this" to a u, even though that "i" isn't an
> independent symbol.  I was hoping that it would do nothing.

But what if you mistakenly invoked the replacement in wrong mode,
and want to repeat the same replacement in the right one?  E.g.
first entered replacement strings in regexp replacement mode:

C-M-% i RET u RET

and then realized you want apply the same replacement strings
in word mode:

C-u M-% RET

Should it perform word replacement as explicitly stated
by the prefix arg C-u, or use a previous replacement type
(in this case, regexp replacement) remembered in the
replacement history?

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bug#25591: 25.1; M-% offers to repeat last search, but forgets that it was a "symbol" search

[Juri Linkov]

> Hm, I wasn't aware that M-% interprets the prefix arg to mean "word
> replace".  My instinct says it should honor the explicit C-u.

Even in your example, wouldn't it be confusing if after typing

C-a M-% RET !

and seeing this non-symbol prompt

Query replace (default i → u):

replacement will still be symbol-based
(because the previous replacement was symbol-based)?

To be not confusing the prompt should show explicitly
the replacement type, e.g. in case of symbol replacement:

Query replace symbol (default i → u):

When we'll store the replacement type in the history,
then maybe display previous replacements in the minibuffer like

Query replace (default symbol i → u):

then typing M-p will pull a previous replacement into the minibuffer,
e.g. word-based:

Query replace (default symbol i → u): word foo → bar

where “word” is intangible part of the prompt.

>>> I don't know if this is a bug, but it's disappointing and inconvenient.
>>>
>>> Start emacs with -Q, and type into the *scratch* buffer these 10 characters:
>>>
>>>     I ate this
>>>
>>> Now do C-a to move point to the beginning of the line.
>>>
>>> Now replace the symbol "i" with "u":
>>>
>>>    M-s _ i M-% u RET !
>>>
>>> So far, so good: we are looking at
>>>
>>>    U at this
>>>
>>> which is correct.
>>>
>>> Now try to repeat the replacement:
>>>
>>>    C-a M-% RET !
>>>
>>> This changes the "i" in "this" to a u, even though that "i" isn't an
>>> independent symbol.  I was hoping that it would do nothing.
>>
>> But what if you mistakenly invoked the replacement in wrong mode,
>> and want to repeat the same replacement in the right one?  E.g.
>> first entered replacement strings in regexp replacement mode:
>>
>> C-M-% i RET u RET
>>
>> and then realized you want apply the same replacement strings
>> in word mode:
>>
>> C-u M-% RET
>>
>> Should it perform word replacement as explicitly stated
>> by the prefix arg C-u, or use a previous replacement type
>> (in this case, regexp replacement) remembered in the
>> replacement history?