Re: How to delete the parens around a sexp?

[Nicolas Richard <youngfrog@members.fsf.org>]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> Hi list,
>
> I'd like to transform this:
>
> -!-(some gibberish)
>
> into this:
>
> -!-some gibberish

I use the following code, which allows me to delete the brackets (M-D
RET) or replace them by another pair, e.g. square brackets (M-D [).

M-D runs the command yf/replace-or-delete-pair defined as follows:

(defun yf/replace-or-delete-pair (open)
  "Replace pair at point by OPEN and its corresponding closing character.
The closing character is lookup in the syntax table or asked to
the user if not found."
  (interactive
   (list
    (read-char
     (format "Replacing pair %c%c by (or hit RET to delete pair):"
             (char-after)
             (save-excursion
               (forward-sexp 1)
               (char-before))))))
  (if (memq open '(?\n ?\r))
      (delete-pair)
    (let ((close (cdr (aref (syntax-table) open))))
      (when (not close)
        (setq close
              (read-char
               (format "Don't know how to close character %s (#%d) ; please provide a closing character: "
                       (single-key-description open 'no-angles)
                       open))))
      (yf/replace-pair open close))))

(defun yf/replace-pair (open close)
  "Replace pair at point by respective chars OPEN and CLOSE.
If CLOSE is nil, lookup the syntax table. If that fails, signal
an error."
  (let ((close (or close
                   (cdr-safe (aref (syntax-table) open))
                   (error "No matching closing char for character %s (#%d)"
                          (single-key-description open t)
                          open)))
        (parens-require-spaces))
    (insert-pair 1 open close))
  (delete-pair)
  (backward-char 1))

-- 
Nicolas Richard