Re: Define skeleton from alist?

[John Mastro <john.b.mastro@gmail.com>]

Paul Rankin <hello@paulwrankin.com> wrote:
> I'd like to create a skeleton with define-skeleton using strings from
> an alist. The skeleton should loop through the alist using the car of
> each element as both the prompt and first string inserted, then the
> cadr as initial value for user input.

I've never used skeleton but, from a quick look, it seems to me you
might be better served by a normal command. Is there a specific reason
you want/need to use skeleton?

If I understand correctly, this will achieve something like the final
result you want:

(defun fountain-title-page-function ()
  (interactive)
  (dolist (elt fountain-title-page-list)
    (let ((key (car elt))
          (val (cadr elt)))
      (insert key ": " (read-string (concat key ": ") val) "\n"))))

The reason this seems preferable to me, based on the stated problem, is
that it's impossible for a solution with skeleton to be much simpler
than the command above. By definition, the solution with skeleton will
still need a loop, etc.

Back to your question, I don't see how you could do it with
define-skeleton directly.

I looked at the implementation of define-skeleton, and it hands off the
work to a function called skeleton-proxy-new. I suppose you could call
it directly with something ugly like the below.

That's admittedly unsatisfying, so hopefully someone who actually knows
skeleton will be along with a better answer shortly.

(progn
  (put 'fountain-title-page-skeleton 'no-self-insert t)
  (defun fountain-title-page-skeleton (&optional str arg)
    (interactive "*P\nP")
    (skeleton-proxy-new
     `(nil ,@(let ((i 0))
               (apply #'append
                      (mapcar
                       (lambda (elt)
                         (let ((key (concat (car elt) ": "))
                               (val (cadr elt))
                               (sym (intern (format "v%d" (setq i (1+ i))))))
                           `(> ,key (setq ,sym (skeleton-read ,key ,val)) \n)))
                       fountain-title-page-list))))
     str arg)))

Hope that helps

        John