🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <22385.9208111225@compton.cogsci.ed.ac.uk> robert@cogsci.edinburgh.ac.UK writes:

   I have just run into a file completion problem in Epoch 4.0.1, although the
   same problem manifests itself in Emacs 18.52.7.

   I have recently started using a program which creates, for its own use,
   lock/log files called ".-etc-motd-" and ".-export-local-share-etc-motd-"
   in my home directory.

   The bug appears when I tried to visit a "dot" file in my home directory,
   though I couldn't remember its precise name.

   I typed C-x C-f, and was prompted for the "Find file:" with a default of
   "~/".  When I added a "." to this and pressed SPC for completions, Emacs
   behaved as if these two were the only "dot" files in my home directory,
   when in fact there were many others.  In particular, it first completed
   as far as "~/.-", when I pressed SPC again it gave "~/.-e", and when I
   pressed SPC a third time, it gave a completion list of just these two
   files. 

   If more of the file name is given as a "seed" for the completion, all is
   well, and all the relevant files become visible.

   I'm afraid I don't have time to look into this problem now, but I notice
   that these two files come, alphabetically, between "." and "..": could some
   mechanisms for suppressing ".." be fouling up?


I think this counts as a feature, not a bug.  The binding for SPC during file
name completion is `minibuffer-complete-word', which causes emacs to do
completion *no further* than the end of the next word.  Now the character
syntax for "." is *not* "word constituent", so you're already at the end of a
word.  In this case, emacs word-completion looks for what it's already got
followed by a hyphen.  This is why you only get your "~/.-foobar" files listed.

The thing to do is to use "?" instead of "SPC" to get a filename completion
list.  Alternatively, you could rebind "SPC" in one of the minibuffer maps, but
I wouldn't recommend this!
-- 
Kevin Broadey, EDS-Scicon
Mail:	Wavendon Tower, Wavendon, Milton Keynes, MK17 8LX, England
E-mail: kbroadey@edscom.demon.co.uk
Phone:	+44 908 284198 or +44 908 585858 ext 4198