> You can complete [the message] by asking a
> specific question or posting code that demonstrates your efforts
> to date (along with a specific question). ...
> Does that make sense?

    I makes sens but I thought that was what I had done.
Rather than writing

       I am trying to write an interactive function
       that prompts for a file name, placing point at
       the end of the prompt and mark somewhere
       earlier in the path.

I had written

       How do I write an interactive function
       that prompts for a file name, placing point at
       the end of the prompt and mark somewhere
       earlier in the path?

    I described what I could do; code that does that is now attached.

    Certainly, I do not want to be impolite and would like to
understand the list's sense of courtesy.

                                  Thanks,

                                                 Whit

P.S. I finished this note only because it was almost done when I got
Drew Adams message, which offers an answer; I will not have a look at
that.