Re: align mysteries

[Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

"H. Dieter Wilhelm" <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> writes:

> For my needs it is working perfectly (I didn't study it, because it
> works so nicely in my programming mode "APDL-Mode" on Melpa). Here's an
> example when setting parameters:
>
> mp = 3333333
> l =40.0
> kkkkk=8
>
> M-x apdl-align
>
> mp    = 3333333
> l     =	     40.0
> kkkkk =	      8

Ah, I see.  apdl-mode has set up a bunch of rules in
apdl-align-rules-list, and that makes `M-x align' work perfectly.

text-mode hasn't set up any alignment rules, so `M-x align' does nothing
and `C-u M-x align' does...  weird stuff?

No, not quite?

(defcustom align-rules-list
[...]
    ;; With a numeric prefix argument, or C-u, space delimited text
    ;; tables will be aligned.
    (text-column
     (regexp   . "\\(^\\|\\S-\\)\\([ \t]+\\)\\(\\S-\\|$\\)")
     (group    . 2)
     (modes    . align-text-modes)
     (repeat   . t)
     (run-if   . ,(lambda ()
                    (and current-prefix-arg
                         (not (eq '- current-prefix-arg))))))

So this is where the prefix action comes from!  Wow, that's a weird way
to control this.

But...  why?  Why only have `M-x align' do something in text modes if
you give it a prefix?

And the other oddness I was seeing with this indentation:

foo	bar	zot	
lalala	y indeed

It indents it the expected way if I change the "y" into a "yy".

foo	bar	zot	
lalala	yy	indeed

I guess there's some heavy DWIM involved here?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no