Save yanked text to string in Emacs - emacs

I am trying to store yanked text to a variable in Emacs.
It seems like the following works:
(let ((str nil))
(with-temp-buffer
(yank)
(setq str (buffer-string)))
I wondered, are there any simpler methods for achieving this? It seems like opening a temporary buffer just to get the yanked text is overkill.

The value you are looking for in your function is available as
(car kill-ring)
This should work:
(defun was-yanked ()
"When called after a yank, store last yanked value in let-bound yanked. "
(interactive)
(let (yanked)
(and (eq last-command 'yank)
(setq yanked (car kill-ring))))
Maybe message and also return it:
(defun was-yanked ()
"When called after a yank, store last yanked value in let-bound yanked. "
(interactive)
(let (yanked)
(and (eq last-command 'yank)
(setq yanked (car kill-ring))))
(when (interactive-p) (message "%s" yanked))
yanked)

You may want to use (current-kill 0) instead of (car kill-ring).
See the doc string of kill-ring:
,----
| List of killed text sequences.
| Since the kill ring is supposed to interact nicely with cut-and-paste
| facilities offered by window systems, use of this variable should
| interact nicely with `interprogram-cut-function' and
| `interprogram-paste-function'. The functions `kill-new',
| `kill-append', and `current-kill' are supposed to implement this
| interaction; you may want to use them instead of manipulating the kill
| ring directly.
,----
This also answers your second question, from your comment. See the doc for the functions mentioned in this doc string etc.

Related

ggtags find-definition/reference with IDO interface

I dont like default ggtags interface around ggtags-find-definition/reference/file. I managed to get ggtags-find-file work with IDO, but ggtags-find-definition is a lot harder problem.
Is there some package which can do it? If not, how to make one?
NOTE: I want to be able to browse found definitions/references in fuzzy minibuffer, not whole new buffer (and window).
Normally, I would suggest ido-completing-read-plus (formerly ido-ubiquitous). It makes almost every command that uses completing-read use ido-completing-read instead. However, there is one major case where it doesn't work well: when the completion candidates are generated by a function. This is the case for ggtags-completion-table, which is how ggtags generates its completion candidates.
The solution is to define your own ggtags-completing-read-function that expands the candidates before passing to ido-completing-read. Note: the reason why ido-completing-read (and in turn ido-completing-read-plus) doesn't allow this is because it might use a ton of memory and CPU, and may freeze the UI. You will probably need to tune this to make it acceptable if you have a large number of completion candidates. Also note that most ggtags commands work with the symbol at point; it seems like you generally just give a prefix arg (C-u) to make it prompt for the symbol.
(defun jpk/ggtags-completing-read (&rest args)
(apply #'ido-completing-read
(car args)
(all-completions "" ggtags-completion-table)
(cddr args)))
(setq ggtags-completing-read-function #'jpk/ggtags-completing-read)
Assuming that you ran ggtags-find-definition and it found results and put them in the buffer *ggtags-global*, this function will extract the filenames and line numbers and let you use IDO to pick the one you want.
(defun ido-goto-grep-results (grep-buffer prompt)
(interactive)
(let (candidates result filename dirname line)
(with-current-buffer grep-buffer
(setq dirname default-directory)
(save-excursion
(save-match-data
(goto-char (point-min))
(forward-line 4)
(while (re-search-forward "^\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):" nil 'noerror)
(push (concat (match-string 1) ":" (match-string 2))
candidates)))))
(setq result (split-string (ido-completing-read prompt candidates nil t) ":"))
(setq filename (car result))
(setq line (string-to-number (cadr result)))
(find-file-other-window (expand-file-name filename dirname))
(goto-char (point-min))
(forward-line (1- line))))
(ido-goto-grep-results "*ggtags-global*" "Jump to definition: ")
This is pretty rough. You probably want to make your own find-definition command that runs ggtags-find-definition and ido-goto-grep-results at once. Somehow you need to only get the actual results and not the "Global found N definitions..." line (better regexp, narrow the ggtags buffer, or some other way).

Auto-escaping yanked strings in emacs

I apparently have a powerful itch this weekend to add a ton of functionality to my Emacs environment. I can do some basics on my own, and hunt down other stuff, but I haven't been able to find a solution to this (and am not good enough at Lisp to do it on my own).
I frequently work with strings of HTML, and sometimes if I move them from one block to another (or one language to another) strings are broken where they aren't escaped. So, I want a function that does something like this:
(defun smart-yank-in-string()
(if (stringp) ; Check if the point is in a string
; Check if the region created from the point to the end of the yank ends the string
; (and there is more yank left that isn't ";")
; Escape quotes for those locations recursively by prepending \
; Insert result into buffer # mark
))
Any clever ideas? I think it involves using kill-new to stash a variable and walk through it, but I'm not conversant enough in elisp to solve it.
Next yank should insert the escaped string:
(defun escape-doublequotes-at-car-of-kill-ring ()
"Escape doublequotes in car of kill-ring "
(interactive)
(with-temp-buffer
(insert (car kill-ring))
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (search-forward "\"" nil t 1)
(replace-match "\\\\\""))
(kill-new (buffer-substring-no-properties (point-min) (point-max)))))
Here is an alternative
(defun my-yank()
(interactive)
(if (nth 3 (syntax-ppss)) ;; Checks if inside a string
(insert-for-yank (replace-regexp-in-string "[\\\"]"
"\\\\\\&"
(current-kill 0)
t))
(call-interactively 'yank)))
The command when invoked checks if the point is in a string, if so it escapes the yanked text otherwise it yanks normally. One disadvantage is that you cannot use yank-pop after yanking inside a string.
Maybe you could do it as follow (guaranteed 100% non-functional code ahead):
(defun my-kill-quoted-string (start end)
"Like kill-region but takes of unquoting/requoting."
(interactive "r")
(let ((str (buffer-extract-substring start end)))
(if (nth 3 (syntax-ppss))
;; Unquote according to mode and context. E.g. we should unquote " and things like that in HTML.
(setq str (replace-regexp-in-string "\\\\\"" "\"" str)))
(put-text-property 0 (length str) 'yank-handler
(list (lambda (str)
(if (not (nth 3 (syntax-ppss)))
(insert str)
;; Requote according to mode and context.
(insert (replace-regexp-in-string "[\\\"]" "\\\\\\&" str))))))
(kill-new str)))

Set default value of replace-string in Emacs by selecting a word

I'm using function like this to replace strings in Emacs.
(defun replace-string-from-top ()
(interactive)
(save-excursion
(beginning-of-buffer)
(call-interactively 'replace-string)))
(global-set-key "\C-r" 'replace-string-from-top)
And I want to use default value of replace-string function by selecting a word.
What I want to do is.
select a word by double clicking it.
call replace-string-from-top function with the selected word by default value.
I've tried to write the function but I couldn't.
How can I do it?
Neither replace-string nor the function that it uses to read its args when you call it interactively, which is query-replace-read-args, has any provision for providing a default programmatically in a dynamic way. The most you can do is set variable query-replace-defaults. You can bind that variable to a value in your command, so that the first element in its list value is the string from the region, i.e.:
(let* ((region-string (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end))))
(query-replace-defaults (cons region-string region-string)))
...)
(The value is a cons. Use whatever other value you like as the cdr. Here I've just used the same region string.)
But you can more easily and more directly do what you want if you use library replace+.el. In that case, just set option search/replace-region-as-default-flag to non-nil to get what you want. You can also toggle that option anytime, using command toggle-search/replace-region-as-default. A description of the library is here.
Here's my setup. You can change it in a few places, like add beginning-of-buffer, if you want.
(defvar qr-beg)
(defun string-dwim ()
(let ((bounds
(if (region-active-p)
(cons (region-beginning)
(region-end))
(ignore-errors
(bounds-of-thing-at-point 'symbol)))))
(setq qr-beg (car bounds))
(when (region-active-p)
(set-mark nil))
(when qr-beg
(kill-new
(buffer-substring-no-properties
qr-beg
(cdr bounds))))))
(defun query-replace-dwim (from)
(interactive
(list
(read-regexp "Query replace" (string-dwim))))
(when qr-beg
(goto-char qr-beg)
(setq qr-beg))
(query-replace
from
(query-replace-read-to from "Query replace" nil)))
As you can see, this is a setup for query-replace.
It auto-suggests the thing to be replaced as the current string.
The current string is either the current region, if it's active, or symbol at point.
Also, the current string is kill-newed, so you can yank it as the replacement,
and then just tweak it a bit.

Help writing emacs lisp for emacs etags search

I'm looking for some help developing what I think should be an easy program.
I want something similar to Emacs tags-search command, but I want to collect all search results into a buffer. (I want to see all results of M-,)
I'm thinking this python style pseudo code should work, but I have no idea how to do this in emacs lisp? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
def myTagsGrep(searchValue):
for aFile in the tag list:
result = grep aFile seachValue
if len(result) > 0:
print aFile # to the buffer
print result # to the buffer
I would like to be able to browse through the buffer with the same features tags-apropos does.
Note that a similar question has been asked before:
Is there a way to get emacs tag-search command to output all results to a buffer?
Since I'm such a fan of igrep, I'd use it as the building block. From there it's two simple routines and you're done. With that library and these two functions, all you have to do is:
M-x igrep-tags ^SomeRegexp.*Here RET
Here's the code:
(require 'igrep)
(defun igrep-tags (regex)
(interactive "sTAGS Regexp: ")
(igrep igrep-program regex (tags-file-names)))
(defun tags-file-names ()
(save-excursion
(visit-tags-table-buffer)
(mapcar (lambda (f) (file-truename f))
(tags-table-files))))
And, because the list of files can get really long, and you likely don't care what that list is, you can add these two pieces of code which will make the filenames invisible after the grep has finished:
(add-hook 'compilation-finish-functions 'igrep-tags-hide-filenames)
(defun igrep-tags-hide-filenames (buffer stat)
"hide the filenames b/c they can get long"
(save-excursion
(set-buffer buffer)
(save-match-data
(goto-char (point-min))
(if (search-forward (combine-and-quote-strings (tags-file-names))
nil
(save-excursion (forward-line 10) (point)))
(let ((display-string "..<files from TAGS>.."))
(put-text-property (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0) 'invisible t)
(put-text-property (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0) 'display display-string))))))
To avoid the really long command line, you can use the following code (which creates a temporary file containing all the names of files from TAGS file and uses that instead):
(defun igrep-tags (regex)
(interactive "sTAGS Regexp: ")
(let ((igrep-find t)
(igrep-use-file-as-containing-files t))
(igrep igrep-program regex nil)))
(defvar igrep-use-file-as-containing-files nil)
(defadvice igrep-format-find-command (around igrep-format-find-command-use-filename-instead activate)
"use the second argument as a file containing filenames"
(if igrep-use-file-as-containing-files
(progn (with-temp-file
(setq igrep-use-file-as-containing-files (make-temp-file "tags-files"))
(insert (combine-and-quote-strings (tags-file-names))))
(setq ad-return-value (format "cat %s | xargs -e %s"
igrep-use-file-as-containing-files
(ad-get-arg 0))))
ad-do-it))
And, for those using Emacs 22 or earlier, you'll need the routine that's shipped with Emacs 23 (from subr.el)
(defun combine-and-quote-strings (strings &optional separator)
"Concatenate the STRINGS, adding the SEPARATOR (default \" \").
This tries to quote the strings to avoid ambiguity such that
(split-string-and-unquote (combine-and-quote-strings strs)) == strs
Only some SEPARATORs will work properly."
(let* ((sep (or separator " "))
(re (concat "[\\\"]" "\\|" (regexp-quote sep))))
(mapconcat
(lambda (str)
(if (string-match re str)
(concat "\"" (replace-regexp-in-string "[\\\"]" "\\\\\\&" str) "\"")
str))
strings sep)))
Here is the code I use to create a tag system for my personal notes. It uses bookmarks and treats each word in a bookmark as a single tag. Its not quite what you're looking for but it might get you started.
The first couple of functions are probably already implemented in emacs, but I wrote my own for reasons that I no longer recall.
;; FILTER keeps only elements of li for which pred returns true
(defun filter (pred li)
(let (acc)
(dolist (elem li)
(if (funcall pred elem)
(setq acc (cons elem acc))))
(reverse acc)))
(defun string-match-all-p (str li)
(if li
(if (string-match-p (car li) str)
(string-match-all-p str (cdr li))
nil)
t))
;;bookmarks as tags
(defun lookup-bookmark-tags (tagstring)
(interactive "s")
(let ((taglist (split-string tagstring " ")))
(let ((bookmark-alist (filter
(lambda (elem)
(string-match-all-p (car elem) taglist))
bookmark-alist)))
(call-interactively 'list-bookmarks))))
I then bind the 'tagging' behavior to a key (F11) and the 'lookup' behavior to another (F12).
(global-set-key [f11] 'bookmark-set)
(global-set-key [f12] 'lookup-bookmark-tags))
Hope that is useful to you.
This is what you want:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Emacs_Tags_Enhancements#icicle-tags-search
This is the doc string for icicle-tags-search:
Search all source files listed in tags tables for matches for REGEXP.
You are prompted for the REGEXP to match. Enter REGEXP with `RET'.
You do not need `M-,' - you see all matches as search hits to visit.
All tags in a tags file are used, including duplicate tags from the
same or different source files.
By default, all tags files are used, but if you provide a prefix
argument then only the current tag table is used.
If your TAGS file references source files that no longer exist, those
files are listed. In that case, you might want to update your TAGS
file.
You can alternatively choose to search, not the search contexts as
defined by the context regexp you provide, but the non-contexts, that
is, the text in the files that does not match the regexp. To do this,
use `C-M-~' during completion. (This is a toggle, and it affects only
future search commands, not the current one.)
See also this page for more explanation about Icicles search:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview

matching keys in association lists in emacs lisp

I'm using folding-mode in emacs and was trying to make a function to insert the appropriate folding marker (start or end) depending on mode. So far I have
(defun insert-folding-mode-mark ()
(interactive)
(let ((st "##{{{")
(en "##}}}")
string-to-insert)
(save-excursion
(setq string-to-insert
(let ((here (point))
sp ep)
(setq sp (search-backward st))
(goto-char here)
(setq ep (search-backward en))
(if (< sp ep) st en))))
(insert string-to-insert)))
This inserts "##{{{" at (point) unless "##{{{" precedes it, in which case it inserts "##}}}".
I'd like to replace the first (let) assignment with something that determines the start and end markers with something like
(let* ((match (assoc (intern mode-name) folding-mode-marks-alist))
(st (nth 1 match))
(en (nth 2 match)))
[is (intern) meant to be called in this way?] A truncated version of my folding-mode-marks-alist looks something like
((ess-mode "##{{{" "##}}}")
(tex-mode "%{{{" "%}}}")
(python-mode "# {{{" "# }}}")
(emacs-lisp-mode ";;{{{" ";;}}}")
(TeX-mode "%{{{" "%}}}")
(LaTeX-mode "%{{{" "%}}}"))
while the mode-name returned from various modes are {"Emacs-Lisp", "ESS[S]", "PDFLaTeX", "Python", ...}. Seems like I might want to do some partial matching with strings using (downcase), (concat x "-mode"), and so on, but was wondering if there was an idiomatic way in emacs lisp to do this sort of matching with keys of an alist, or do I just have to have a separate block of code by which I extract the keys with (mapcar 'car folding-mode-marks-alist) and convert each symbol to string (how?) to do the matching?
Thanks much!
Emacs Lisp has a destructuring-bind facility which may be helpful here. Also taking advantage of the fact that the symbol naming the current major mode is available via the variable major-mode, you can write something like this:
(destructuring-bind (st en) (cdr (assoc major-mode folding-mode-marks-alist))
; do stuff
)
Note that this won't work if (assoc major-mode folding-mode-marks-alist) returns nil, so better replace that with a call to some custom function capable of returning a sensible default.
In addition to major-mode being more appropriate than mode-name here, the function insert-folding-mode-mark as listed above would throw an error if there were no folding marker between cursor and beginning of buffer. Here is a revision without that quirk:
(require 'cl)
(defun insert-folding-mode-mark ()
(interactive)
(flet ((fn (s) (save-excursion (or (search-backward s () t) 0))))
(destructuring-bind (mode st en)
(or (assoc major-mode folding-mode-marks-alist) '(nil "" ""))
(insert (if (<= (fn st) (fn en)) st en)))))
Edit: fix problem pointed out in comment.
You may be interested to know there are comment-start and comment-end variables which should already contain the information you need based on major-mode. Something like
(search-backward (concat comment-start "{{{"))
...
(insert comment-start "{{{" comment-end)
should be sufficient. Of course, for lisp modes comment-start is ";" so you may want to do what you are doing to get ";;" but fall back on comment-start for other modes. You can also (setq comment-start ";;") though I'm not entirely sure what difference that makes for the lisp modes.