Re: waiting for asynchronous processes

[Štěpán Němec]

On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:17:03 +0200
Perry Smith wrote:

> Well, as I said, what I really wanted to use is "grep" (the built in emacs 
> function).  
> I assumed I couldn't reach in and change him from asynchronous to synchronous 
> -- can I?

I don't think you can, indeed. `grep' uses `compilation-start', which
only starts a synchronous process when asynchronous processes are not
available.

Depending on what exactly it is you're after, it might be better to just
define your own command, or try to modify the sentinel of the grep
process (the `grep' command returns the compilation buffer; you can get
at the associated process and its sentinel using the usual functions),
which, when done cleanly, would actually require defining another
command, too.

Looking at `compilation-handle-exit', even the default sentinel provides
several hooks for customising what happens when the process finishes,
namely `compilation-exit-message-function' and
`compilation-finish-function(s)', so just using (one of) these variables
might be sufficient for your needs.

-- 
Štěpán