Homepage: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs
Author: (ideas suggested by Brewster Kahle), Jim Salem
Dynamic word-completion code
What to put in .emacs
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(dynamic-completion-mode)
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Documentation [Slightly out of date]
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(also check the documentation string of the functions)
Introduction
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After you type a few characters, pressing the "complete" key inserts
the rest of the word you are likely to type.
This watches all the words that you type and remembers them. When
typing a new word, pressing "complete" (meta-return) "completes" the
word by inserting the most recently used word that begins with the
same characters. If you press meta-return repeatedly, it cycles
through all the words it knows about.
If you like the completion then just continue typing, it is as if you
entered the text by hand. If you want the inserted extra characters
to go away, type control-w or delete. More options are described below.
The guesses are made in the order of the most recently "used". Typing
in a word and then typing a separator character (such as a space) "uses"
the word. So does moving a cursor over the word. If no words are found,
it uses an extended version of the dabbrev style completion.
You automatically save the completions you use to a file between
sessions.
Completion enables programmers to enter longer, more descriptive
variable names while typing fewer keystrokes than they normally would.
Full documentation
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A "word" is any string containing characters with either word or symbol
syntax. [E.G. Any alphanumeric string with hyphens, underscores, etc.]
Unless you change the constants, you must type at least three characters
for the word to be recognized. Only words longer than 6 characters are
saved.
When you load this file, completion will be on. I suggest you use the
compiled version (because it is noticeably faster).
M-x completion-mode toggles whether or not new words are added to the
database by changing the value of enable-completion.
SAVING/LOADING COMPLETIONS
Completions are automatically saved from one session to another
(unless save-completions-flag or enable-completion is nil).
Activating this minor-mode (calling completion-initialize) loads
a completions database for a saved completions file
(default: ~/.completions). When you exit, Emacs saves a copy of the
completions that you often use. When you next start, Emacs loads in
the saved completion file.
The number of completions saved depends loosely on
*saved-completions-decay-factor*. Completions that have never been
inserted via "complete" are not saved. You are encouraged to experiment
with different functions (see compute-completion-min-num-uses).
Some completions are permanent and are always saved out. These
completions have their num-uses slot set to T. Use
add-permanent-completion to do this
Completions are saved only if enable-completion is T. The number of old
versions kept of the saved completions file is controlled by
completions-file-versions-kept.
COMPLETE KEY OPTIONS
The complete function takes a numeric arguments.
control-u :: leave the point at the beginning of the completion rather
than the middle.
a number :: rotate through the possible completions by that amount
`-' :: same as -1 (insert previous completion)
HOW THE DATABASE IS MAINTAINED
UPDATING THE DATABASE MANUALLY
m-x kill-completion
kills the completion at point.
m-x add-completion
m-x add-permanent-completion
UPDATING THE DATABASE FROM A SOURCE CODE FILE
m-x add-completions-from-buffer
Parses all the definition names from a C or LISP mode buffer and
adds them to the completion database.
m-x add-completions-from-lisp-file
Parses all the definition names from a C or Lisp mode file and
adds them to the completion database.
UPDATING THE DATABASE FROM A TAGS TABLE
m-x add-completions-from-tags-table
Adds completions from the current tags-table-buffer.
HOW A COMPLETION IS FOUND
STRING CASING
Completion is string case independent if case-fold-search has its
normal default of T. Also when the completion is inserted the case of the
entry is coerced appropriately.
[E.G. APP --> APPROPRIATELY app --> appropriately
App --> Appropriately]
INITIALIZATION
The form `(completion-initialize)' initializes the completion system by
trying to load in the user's completions. After the first call, further
calls have no effect so one should be careful not to put the form in a
site's standard site-init file.
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Functions you might like to call
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add-completion string &optional num-uses
Adds a new string to the database
add-permanent-completion string
Adds a new string to the database with num-uses = T
kill-completion string
Kills the completion from the database.
clear-all-completions
Clears the database
list-all-completions
Returns a list of all completions.
next-completion string &optional index
Returns a completion entry that starts with string.
find-exact-completion string
Returns a completion entry that exactly matches string.
complete
Inserts a completion at point
completion-initialize
Loads the completions file and sets up so that exiting Emacs will
save them.
save-completions-to-file &optional filename
load-completions-from-file &optional filename
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Other functions
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get-completion-list string
These things are for manipulating the structure
make-completion string num-uses
completion-num-uses completion
completion-string completion
set-completion-num-uses completion num-uses
set-completion-string completion string
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To Do :: (anybody ?)
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Implement Lookup and keyboard interface in C
Add package prefix smarts (for Common Lisp)
Add autoprompting of possible completions after every keystroke (fast
terminals only !)
Add documentation to texinfo
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