kill-region without modifying the kill ring

kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jim Newton]

is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without changing the kill ring.
I often want to cut several different regions by highlighting them, but then insert a particular thing with C-Y.  If I use C-W to kill the region C-Y will yank back the string I just killed rather than the one I want.

It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does not effect the kill-ring.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[tomas]

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On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 01:32:14AM -0700, Jim Newton wrote:
> is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without changing the kill ring.
> I often want to cut several different regions by highlighting them, but then insert a particular thing with C-Y.  If I use C-W to kill the region C-Y will yank back the string I just killed rather than the one I want.

delete-region is advertised to do that, but a quick test
in my case seems to do the same as kill. I haven't the time
now to debug that, might just be an idiosyncracy of my
less-than-organized .emacs

> It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does not effect the kill-ring.

Not an answer to your original request, but with M-y you can
replace the just-yanked text with previous kills, so perhaps
you might achieve the effect you're after by first yanking
with C-y, then with M-y (and with consecutive M-y you can
even "walk back" your kill history).

regards
- -- tomás
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Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jim Newton]

> 
> Not an answer to your original request, but with M-y you can
> replace the just-yanked text with previous kills, so perhaps
> you might achieve the effect you're after by first yanking
> with C-y, then with M-y (and with consecutive M-y you can
> even "walk back" your kill history).
> 

Yes, sometimes I do it that way.  But after using C-w a second time, then to get back the yank, I must use C-y M-y M-y, and after C-w N times I have to C-y M-y N-1 times.  Yes its do-able, which made me wonder whether theres a better way.

 

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jim Newton]

> 
> delete-region is advertised to do that, but a quick test
> in my case seems to do the same as kill. I haven't the time
> now to debug that, might just be an idiosyncracy of my
> less-than-organized .emacs
> 

After a quick test, it seems delete-region does what I want.  It doesn't seem to have a standard bind key.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[B. T. Raven]

On 9/25/2015 7:49 AM, Jim Newton wrote:
>
>>
>> delete-region is advertised to do that, but a quick test
>> in my case seems to do the same as kill. I haven't the time
>> now to debug that, might just be an idiosyncracy of my
>> less-than-organized .emacs
>>
>
> After a quick test, it seems delete-region does what I want.  It doesn't seem to have a standard bind key.
>

It would slow things down to have one, and waste a keychord. In order to 
invoke delete-region you first need to define a region. Once that's 
done, either the delete or backspace key will delete it. With a split 
space keyboard the backspace key (left of split) is more accessible than 
any key combo whatever.

Ed

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jim Newton]

Hi Ed, not sure what you're suggesting.  Are you suggesting that the delete or backspace key will delete without modifying the kill-ring?

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Jim Newton writes: 
 
> is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without changing 
> the kill ring. I often want to cut several different regions by 
> highlighting them, but then insert a particular thing with C-Y. 
> If I use C-W to kill the region C-Y will yank back the string I 
> just killed rather than the one I want. 
> 
> It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does not effect 
> the kill-ring. 
 
Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly that? 
By the way, as Tomás suggested, I think that you are better off 
always killing the region and then using M-y. You never know if 
you will actually change your mind and use the text you deleted. 
For an improved version of M-y, try:
 
https://github.com/browse-kill-ring/browse-kill-ring

Best,
-- 
Jorge.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jim Newton]

> Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly that? 
> By the way, as Tomás suggested, I think that you are better off 
> always killing the region and then using M-y. You never know if 
> you will actually change your mind and use the text you deleted. 
> For an improved version of M-y, try:
>  
> https://github.com/browse-kill-ring/browse-kill-ring


The problem, as I described above is that every time I press C-w, then to get back the text I want to yank, I must press M-y N+1 times.

Here is the sequence.  I copy the region I want to insert with M-w,  then I start reading through the text in the buffer, every time I encounter a string I want to replace with C-y, I have to first delete what's there.  So I select the first using M-space a few times, and press C-w C-y M-y, then continue to the text I want to remove and replace (maybe the same string again, or maybe one slightly different), and press M-space (a few times), then C-w C-y M-y M-y,
next time I have to press C-w C-y M-y M-y M-y
The 20th time I need to press
C-w C-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y

That's why the M-y suggestion does not work.

But the suggestion to use [delete] instead of C-w is a good one.  I didn't know I could delete a region with the delete key, i've used C-w since 1988. 

So to answer the original question:
  Q:  how can I delete a region without effecting the kill-ring
  A: delete-forward-char which is bound by default to [delete] (making sure transient mark mode is active)

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Yuri Khan]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Jim Newton <jimka.issy@gmail.com> wrote:
> is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without changing the kill ring.
> I often want to cut several different regions by highlighting them, but then insert a particular thing with C-Y.  If I use C-W to kill the region C-Y will yank back the string I just killed rather than the one I want.
>
> It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does not effect the kill-ring.

I remember something posted on this very list not long ago. It was
called deleterious-mode.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2015-08/msg00152.html

(I don’t use it yet, but I do a very similar thing, rebinding all keys
which normally kill to delete instead. When I want something cut, I
cut it explicitly.)

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Barry Margolin]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
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In article <mailman.1805.1443189138.19560.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 jorge.alfaro-murillo@yale.edu (Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo) wrote:

> Jim Newton writes: 
>  
> > is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without changing 
> > the kill ring. I often want to cut several different regions by 
> > highlighting them, but then insert a particular thing with C-Y. 
> > If I use C-W to kill the region C-Y will yank back the string I 
> > just killed rather than the one I want. 
> > 
> > It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does not effect 
> > the kill-ring. 
>  
> Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly that? 

I just tried it, and C-y recovered the deleted text. So it does put it 
on the kill-ring.

> By the way, as Tomás suggested, I think that you are better off 
> always killing the region and then using M-y. You never know if 
> you will actually change your mind and use the text you deleted. 

I've used delete-region when I've accidentally run a command in a shell 
buffer that spews out thousands of lines of output. I know I'm not going 
to want it back.

And back in the days of more limited memory, I would also turn off undo, 
so that the deleted region wouldn't be saved in the undo-history.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Barry Margolin writes:

> Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo writes: 
> 
>> Jim Newton writes:  
>>   
>> > is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without 
>> > changing  the kill ring. I often want to cut several 
>> > different regions by  highlighting them, but then insert a 
>> > particular thing with C-Y.  If I use C-W to kill the region 
>> > C-Y will yank back the string I  just killed rather than the 
>> > one I want.    It would be nice to have a version of C-W 
>> > which does not effect  the kill-ring.  
>>   
>> Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly 
>> that?  
> 
> I just tried it, and C-y recovered the deleted text. So it does 
> put it  on the kill-ring.

No, I think you are wrong. delete-backward-char (bound to 
<backspace>) doesn't put the text in the kill ring. At least not 
by default, try it with emacs -Q

-- 
Jorge.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Jim Newton writes:

> Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo writes:
>
>> Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly 
>> that?  By the way, as Tomás suggested, I think that you are 
>> better off  always killing the region and then using M-y. You 
>> never know if  you will actually change your mind and use the 
>> text you deleted.  For an improved version of M-y, try: 
>>   
>> https://github.com/browse-kill-ring/browse-kill-ring 
>  
> The problem, as I described above is that every time I press 
> C-w, then to get back the text I want to yank, I must press M-y 
> N+1 times. 
> 
> Here is the sequence. I copy the region I want to insert with 
> M-w, then I start reading through the text in the buffer, every 
> time I encounter a string I want to replace with C-y, I have to 
> first delete what's there. So I select the first using M-space a 
> few times, and press C-w C-y M-y, then continue to the text I 
> want to remove and replace (maybe the same string again, or 
> maybe one slightly different), and press M-space (a few times), 
> then C-w C-y M-y M-y, next time I have to press C-w C-y M-y M-y 
> M-y The 20th time I need to press C-w C-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y 
> M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y 
> 
> That's why the M-y suggestion does not work.

I see now what you mean. I think registers are better for that 
case.  Select the region that you will yank a lot of times, do:

C-x r s 1 <enter> 

That is copy-to-register, assigning a key, 1 in this example, to 
the text. 

Then every time that you want to insert the text do 
insert-register:

C-x r i 1 <enter>

Then you can continue using C-w as much as you want.

If you will be yanking that text a lot, to save keystrokes record 
a macro: F3 C-x r i 1 <enter> F4, and then use F4 from then on.

-- 
Jorge.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.1812.1443195492.19560.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 jorge.alfaro-murillo@yale.edu (Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo) wrote:

> Barry Margolin writes:
> 
> > Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo writes: 
> > 
> >> Jim Newton writes:  
> >>   
> >> > is there a way or an idiom for killing a region without 
> >> > changing  the kill ring. I often want to cut several 
> >> > different regions by  highlighting them, but then insert a 
> >> > particular thing with C-Y.  If I use C-W to kill the region 
> >> > C-Y will yank back the string I  just killed rather than the 
> >> > one I want.    It would be nice to have a version of C-W 
> >> > which does not effect  the kill-ring.  
> >>   
> >> Doesn't selecting the text and using <backspace> do exactly 
> >> that?  
> > 
> > I just tried it, and C-y recovered the deleted text. So it does 
> > put it  on the kill-ring.
> 
> No, I think you are wrong. delete-backward-char (bound to 
> <backspace>) doesn't put the text in the kill ring. At least not 
> by default, try it with emacs -Q

You're right, it was due to some customization, I had <backspace> bound 
to a different function that sets killflag if there's a region.

Once I reverted the binding to normal, I also had to turn on 
delete-selection-mode to make it delete the region rather than a single 
character.

I use Carbon Emacs 22 on OS X, I'm not sure how I would start it with 
options like -Q.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jim Newton <jimka.issy@gmail.com> writes:

> The problem, as I described above is that every time I press C-w, then
> to get back the text I want to yank, I must press M-y N+1 times.
>
> Here is the sequence.  I copy the region I want to insert with M-w,
> then I start reading through the text in the buffer, every time I
> encounter a string I want to replace with C-y, I have to first delete
> what's there.  So I select the first using M-space a few times, and
> press C-w C-y M-y, then continue to the text I want to remove and
> replace (maybe the same string again, or maybe one slightly
> different), and press M-space (a few times), then C-w C-y M-y M-y,
> next time I have to press C-w C-y M-y M-y M-y
> The 20th time I need to press
> C-w C-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y
> M-y M-y M-y M-y M-y
>
> That's why the M-y suggestion does not work.
>
> But the suggestion to use [delete] instead of C-w is a good one.  I
> didn't know I could delete a region with the delete key, i've used C-w
> since 1988.

I know that problem very well.

Some years ago, I also tried to solve this by using deletion instead of
killing.  But I soon dismissed the idea, because

  - there are a bunch of other killing commands (e.g. M-d, C-M-backspace,
  C-k, etc.), and I would need to replace them all with deletion
  commands.

  - even if I did that, I sometimes _want_ to add to the kill ring.
  That complicates the matter again.

But the underlying problem is not killing per se, but the design of the
kill/yank system.  So I ended up by hacking the kill/yank system by
doing more or less the following:

  - after a (persistent) yank, move the yanked piece of text to the
  beginning of the kill ring, and let the yank pointer point to this
  first element

  - for more convenience, let M-y when hit not after a yank, instead of
  raising an error, yank the second element of the kill ring

This implements a different concept of using the kill-ring, changing the
order of kills all of the time reflecting your recent yanks, instead of
the order in which the pieces were actually killed.

So, your workflow from above would become

  kill text to yank

  kill-command, M-y, move to next ocurrance, kill-command, M-y, ...

I used this for a while now and am happy with it.  Of course, killing
still adds to the kill ring, but it doesn't disrupt the above work flow
anymore.  Together with a tool like browse-kill-ring, it perfectly fits
my needs.

I can send you the code if interested.


Regards,

Michael. 

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Javier]

> But the suggestion to use [delete] instead of C-w is a good one.  I
> didn't know I could delete a region with the delete key, i've used
> C-w since 1988.

I think that feature didn't exist until very recently, and it is
associated with transient-mark-mode.  It must have appeared in emacs
23 when they made transient-mark-mode the default.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Robert Thorpe]

jorge.alfaro-murillo@yale.edu (Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo) writes:
...
> If you will be yanking that text a lot, to save keystrokes record 
> a macro: F3 C-x r i 1 <enter> F4, and then use F4 from then on.

That's what I would do.  Another possibility is to do F3 M-x
delete-region RET F4.  Then with F4 temporarily bound to delete region
use it for deletions.  I think using registers is better though, because
it means you can use all of the usual forms of killing M-w, M-DEL, M-d,
C-k, etc.

In situations like this it's also useful to use registers for
navigation.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Emanuel Berg]

Jim Newton <jimka.issy@gmail.com> writes:

> It would be nice to have a version of C-W which does
> not effect the kill-ring.

You can do that but it is better to do first C-y
(`yank') and then M-y (`yank-pop').

Then you may like this as well:

(defun yank-pop-back (&optional arg)
  (interactive "*p")
  (yank-pop (if arg (* arg -1) -1)) )

from:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/yank-my.el

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Suvayu Ali]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 06:40:34PM +0200, Michael Heerdegen wrote:
> So, your workflow from above would become
> 
>   kill text to yank
> 
>   kill-command, M-y, move to next ocurrance, kill-command, M-y, ...
> 
> I used this for a while now and am happy with it.  Of course, killing
> still adds to the kill ring, but it doesn't disrupt the above work flow
> anymore.  Together with a tool like browse-kill-ring, it perfectly fits
> my needs.
> 
> I can send you the code if interested.

This sounds amazing!  I would love to use something like this.

:)

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[Michael Heerdegen]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:

> This sounds amazing!  I would love to use something like this.

But note it's what I want, maybe this hack comes in your way in
situations where you like the original behavior more.

Anyway, here's the hack:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(defun my-yank-reset-yank-pointer ()
  (unless (eq last-command #'yank)
    (setq kill-ring-yank-pointer kill-ring)))

(defun my-yank--before-ad (&rest _args)
  "Before advice function for `yank'.
1. avoid persistent change of kill-ring-yank-pointer after
`yank-pop', and before next kill.
2. For yank-pop, move the really yanked text at the beg of the
kill ring."
  (unless (eq kill-ring kill-ring-yank-pointer)
    (let ((last-yank (car kill-ring-yank-pointer)))
      (when last-yank
        (setq kill-ring (cons last-yank (delete last-yank kill-ring)))
        (my-yank-reset-yank-pointer)))))
  
(advice-add 'yank :before #'my-yank--before-ad)

(defun my-yank-pop ()
  (interactive)
  (if (eq last-command 'yank)
      (call-interactively #'yank-pop)
    (rotate-yank-pointer 1)
    (yank)))

(global-set-key [(meta ?y)] #'my-yank-pop)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


Regards,

Michael.

Re: kill-region without modifying the kill ring

[B. T. Raven]

On 9/25/2015 8:36 AM, Jim Newton wrote:
> Hi Ed, not sure what you're suggesting.  Are you suggesting that the
> delete or backspace key will delete without modifying the kill-ring?
>

Sorry, I read your note too fast. I thought delete-region was the same 
as delete or backspace. Now I have:

(global-set-key [(shift backspace)] 'delete-region)

Which, indeed, does not affect the kill ring.

Ed