minibuffer-prompt-end badly named

minibuffer-prompt-end badly named

[Thomas A. Horsley]

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In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2002-03-19 on buffy
configured using `configure --with-msvc (12.00)'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: ENU
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: nil

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

While attempting to port all my custom lisp code that navigates around
buffers so it works correctly in the minibuffer, I started using things
like (minibuffer-prompt-end) instead of (point-min). This worked
until I tried using some of these functions in shell buffers.

The function minibuffer-prompt-end (and all the other related functions
added for emacs21) are very badly documented. Just looking at prompt-end:

(defun minibuffer-prompt-end ()
  "Return the buffer position of the end of the minibuffer prompt.
Return (point-min) if current buffer is not a mini-buffer."
  (field-beginning (point-max)))

It *claims* to work one way in the minibuffer and another way in all other
buffers, but in reality, all it does is work one way for buffers with
text fields and another way for buffers without text fields. Since
lots of buffers use text fields (comint, to pick a popular one), this
will have strange and wondrous behavior if you write code while
believing the documentation.

In fact, it would really be useful to have functions that work the
way minibuffer-prompt-end and friends are documented to work, but
unfortunately, they don't work that way :-(.

Speaking of which, how the devil do you tell if the current buffer
is a minibuffer?

Recent input:
<help-echo> <help-echo> c y SPC c y SPC c y SPC c y 
SPC c y SPC c y SPC c y SPC c y SPC c y SPC c y SPC 
<down> SPC <down> <down> <down> <down> SPC <down> SPC 
c y SPC c y C-u 9 9 c y q y <f1> r e p o r t - b u 
g <tab> <f1> a p r o p o s <return> r e p o r t . * 
b u g <return> <f1> r e p o r t - e m a c <tab> <r
eturn>

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Re: minibuffer-prompt-end badly named

[Richard Stallman]

I will improve this area.

    The function minibuffer-prompt-end (and all the other related functions
    added for emacs21) are very badly documented.

Could you give me a precise list of the functions that you think
are badly documented?  I could afford to look at specific functions
to try to improve their doc strings, but I'd rather not take the extra
time to hunt for the right functions.

Re: minibuffer-prompt-end badly named

[Thomas A. Horsley]

>I will improve this area.
>
>    The function minibuffer-prompt-end (and all the other related functions
>    added for emacs21) are very badly documented.
>
>Could you give me a precise list of the functions that you think
>are badly documented?  I could afford to look at specific functions
>to try to improve their doc strings, but I'd rather not take the extra
>time to hunt for the right functions.

Upon further review, it may only be minibuffer-prompt-end that has the
really screwy doc string. The other functions right next to it all say they
must be used in the minibuffer, and in those cases, the rest of the doc
string is correct. I'd still like a function that actually does what the
current doc string for minibuffer-prompt-end claims to do :-).

The best I've come up with so far is:

(defun writable-point-min ()
"Return first writable position in current buffer."
   (let
      ( (rval (point-min)) )
      (if (get-text-property rval 'read-only)
         (setq rval (next-single-property-change rval 'read-only)) )
      rval ) )

--
>>==>> The *Best* political site <URL:http://www.vote-smart.org/> >>==+
      email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL      |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

Re: minibuffer-prompt-end badly named

[Richard Stallman]

I changed minibuffer-prompt-end so that outside the minibuffer
it always returns (point-beg).  Thanks for pointing out the problem.