Re: xref "find references" and grouping

[Helmut Eller <eller.helmut@gmail.com>]

On Sat, May 02 2015, Dmitry Gutov wrote:

> On 05/02/2015 05:14 PM, Helmut Eller wrote:
>
>> Maybe the current group label could be generalized to a path in a tree
>> e.g. (<file> <class> <method>) where each element of such a tree path is
>> simply a string and the UI can display it either as a flat list or some
>> of kind tree widget.
>
> In this format, we lose the ordering, though. Then we'll have sorting
> functions, which would need to be returned with the data, and we'll
> need to decide whether there's one function, or several (per level).

Not sure what you mean.  Trees can be ordered and a list of tree-paths
would seem enough to describe an ordered tree.

[...]
> The different actions in xref-find-function will be required to return
> "renderable" elements (better name pending), in a backend-defined
> order, and there will be no subsequent sorting (basically, like now).

Sounds like there would not be much left to be shared between different
languages.  Maybe we should never have tried to generalize this anyway
and simply declare a convention that programming modes should bind
M-. to a find-definition-like command.  That certainly would avoid the
current dilemma of pleasing everybody.

[...]
> Later, some extra stuff, if we reach the "rename" feature, like:

A rename feature would probably benefit from an UI that's
separate/independent from find-definition.

Helmut