🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill Wohler (wohler@sap-ag.DE) wrote:

>   joe, i think the design came about because quoted-insert can insert
>   1, 2 or more characters.  if quoted-insert overwrote, then if i had
>   the word "hunchen" and i wanted to replace the 'u' with an
>   "u-umlaut", the result would be "h\207en", NOT what i would want.
> 
>   perhaps an alternative design would be for quoted-insert in
>   overwrite mode to overwrite only one character and insert the rest
>   (ie "hunchen" -> "h\207nchen").  richard?

Barry Margolin adds:

> Assuming we get a variant of overwrite mode where quoted-insert overwrites,
> would it be correct for it to overwrite just one character?  If I type C-q
> C-a, the resulting character displays as "^A", so maybe it should overwrite
> two characters.  And if I type C-q 200, the result is "\200", so it should
> presumably replace four characters.

Excuse me? Am I missing something?  This sounds like a major red herring..

Consider the following case: suppose the existing text says:

   h\207nchen

where the \207 is a single character. If you position the cursor on the
\207 in overwrite-mode and type "u", what does the display show now?
hu207nchen or hunchen? It's not like you're replacing 4 characters with 1.
4 *screen positions* maybe, but not characters.

I see no reason why the reverse should not also be true: if you do a
quoted-insert in overwrite-mode, *and if we adopt Joe Wells' definition*, I
don't see that there are any logical contradictions or anomalies. If you
are on the "u" in "hunchen", and type \2074, say, you should get
"h\2074chen", where the single character "\207" has overwritten the "u" and
the "4" has overwritten the "n".

So what the argument boils down to is, as always, "That's how it is done".
--
Shankar Unni				E-Mail:	shankar@sgi.com
Silicon Graphics Inc.			Phone:	+1-415-390-2072