Re: M-=

[Chong Yidong <cyd@gnu.org>]

Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> writes:

> C-x C-u is another example that unconditionally acts on the region.
> (Please don't change this!)

Yes, upcase-region obviously falls in the category of commands which
would give annoying results if accidentally triggered on the whole
buffer.  Counting words, on the other hand, doesn't.

> Also M-= was bound to count-lines-region (or later count-words-region)
> since Emacs 18 at least. OTOH, during all that time there wasn't any
> key that did this operation for the whole buffer. From that I conclude
> that it wasn't missed, otherwise a key binding would have been added.

If I'm not mistaken, counting words in the buffer was one of the more
commonly-requested commands on gnu.emacs.help.

But your argument that the change might be disruptive, because of how
long M-= has been around, is a fair one.

>> Another possibility is to keep M-= for count-words-region and assign
>> another convenient key to count-words.  The obvious candidate is C-=,
>> but unfortunately it is not typable on text terminals.
>
> I wouldn't mind that. But how about M-+ ?

How about making C-u M-= (count-words-region with a prefix argument)
call count-words on the whole buffer?

This is a bit messy; as I said, it breaks consistency with the way other
commands handle active regions.  But I guess it is better to not switch
things around on users, if there are indeed people who frequently use
M-=.