RE: does emacs support incremental searching for partial matches?

[Drew Adams]

> >> I'm wondering if emacs has built-in support for 
> >> incremental searching for partial matches, such as searching
> >> for 'memcache' matches 'memorycache'.
> >
> > You can use regexp search: `C-M-s mem.*cache'.
> > See `C-h r g regexp search RET'.
> 
> Hi Drew, thank you for your help!
> Sometimes I would be able to know the .* part, for example, I want to
> match WindowsMemoryCacheManagement by using 'memcache'. With regular
> expression, I have to specify .*m.*e.*m.*c.*a.*c.*h.*e.*

I don't understand.  Why would you have to specify that?  You should be able to
match `WindowsMemoryCacheManagement' using just `C-M-s mem.*cache'.  Or maybe
you meant that you do _not_ know where the possible skips are located?

> Is there any command or plugin I can use?

Do you mean something that lets you not need to include the `.*'?
I.e., to type only `memcache', not `mem.*cache'?

Again, IMHO it's not a big deal to type `.*'.  But if that's what you're looking
for then yes, you can use Icicles search with scatter-match completion.

This kind of completion is the same as TextMate's file-name completion and Ido's
flex-match completion.  It automatically inserts `.*' between every pair of
characters you type - nothing more.  So you type only `memcache' and it thinks
`m.*e.*m.*c.*a.*c.*h.*e'.

In Icicles you can change the completion mode to scatter matching at any time by
hitting `M-(' in the minibuffer.  `M-(' cycles the possible matching modes for
`S-TAB' completion: `apropos' (regexp), `scatter', `Levenshtein', `Levenshtein
strict', and `Jaro-Winkler'.  (Apropos completion is the `S-TAB' default.)

Icicles search (an incremental search that uses completion):
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Search_Commands%2c_Overview

Scatter-match completion:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Fuzzy_Completion

But I recommend that you just get used to using a regexp pattern, regardless of
the search tool you use.  You won't regret it.