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RE: Quickly finding out a function or a variable you need?


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: Quickly finding out a function or a variable you need?
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 22:56:44 -0800

> > while writing Emacs Lisp code, I often use `describe-function' and
> > `describe-variable' to search for functions and variables related to
> > the task at hand.
> >
> > This commands, however - unlike `apropos' - require you to know the
> > first characters. This means you'll have an hard time, for instance,
> > finding `kill-buffer' when looking for functions which operate on
> > buffers. Moreover, in both `describe-*', completion buffer 
> > is lost as soon as you choose a completion, thus if you want to
> > check another interesting function/variable you just saw, you have to 
> > start all over again.
> >
> > I know I must be missing something... Maybe there is some 
> > super-search facility inside Emacs which I don't know about (besides 
> > using Internet search engines I mean)? How do you quickly find out a
> > function or a variable you need in your code, instead?

Icicles arithmetic:

   better matching (regexp/substring)
 + progressive completion
 ------------------------------------
 find stuff easily

It's like incremental apropos, and then some.

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsNewbieWithIcicles#toc8
 
> I find that in addition to the apropos set of commands and 
> the describe facilities, that the elisp manual is extremely useful. 
> Normally, I open a frame with info running on the elisp manual. When
> looking for something which I suspect is there, but have no idea what
> its name is, I jump to the manual. Using either the menus, which are
> group into fairly high level topics, such as buffers, strings, regexp,
> etc a quick read of one of the relevant subsedtions usually gives me
> what I want fairly quickly. The search facilities of info are also
> very useful and then of course their is the indexes. This combination
> seems to work pretty well.

Meme combat.  To find stuff in the manual, `i' (index) is your friend, but even
then you still need better matching and progressive completion.

Try finding the Emacs FAQ entry that deals with spaces in file names - can you
guess what the index entry for it is?  Or the Info node name for it?

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsNewbieWithIcicles#toc9





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