Re: [PATCH] Allow %<num> escapes to capture templates, expanded to text entered in <num>'th prompt

[Toby Cubitt <tsc25@cantab.net>]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 02:54:31PM +0200, Bastien wrote:
> Toby Cubitt <tsc25@cantab.net> writes:
> 
> > Currently, capture templates provide no way of prompting for some text,
> > then inserting that text into multiple places in the template.
> 
> Thanks for the patch, I applied it.
> 
> I also updated the documentation in doc/org.texi -- please provide
> documentation in the patch containing code changes if relevant next
> times.

Ah, I forgot about the texinfo docs. Sorry. I'll try to remember them
next time.

> One tiny thing: the documentation said that %0 would match the first
> occurrence but while I tested the first occurrence was on %1, which
> looks better to me.
> 
> So I updated the documentation accordingly.

Yes, you're right, it starts from 1. That's what comes of adding the
documentation later, as an after-thought...(bad programming practice!)

And now I look at it again, there's a bug in the regexp (my fault): the
regexp "%\\([1-9]\\)+" currently matches any sequence of 1-9's, which is
clearly wrong. The two possible fixes are:

- Drop the final + from the regexp so that it reads "%\\([1-9]\\)", to
  match any single non-zero digit, as per the current docs. (The regexp
  group must be kept, because it's used later in the code.)

- Change the regexp to "%\\([1-9][0-9]*\\)", to match any positive
  integer, and update the docs accordingly.

It seems unlikely anyone would ever want to refer back to more than
9 prompts in a capture template. (I think back-references in Emacs
regexps are similarly limited to single digits).

On the other hand, whenever someone says "it seems unlikely anyone would
ever want to..." about Emacs, up pops someone who wants to do exactly
that ;-)

Your call. If you tell me which fix you prefer, I can supply a patch if
you want one (though the change is so small I imagine it'll be easier to
do it manually).

Toby
-- 
Dr T. S. Cubitt
Mathematics and Quantum Information group
Department of Mathematics
Complutense University
Madrid, Spain

email: tsc25@cantab.net
web:   www.dr-qubit.org