Tags: patch

ERC suffers from a few related issues concerning the early handling of
user input at the prompt. Especially troublesome is "multiline" input
containing line feeds and/or carriage returns. This patch (or at least
this discussion) aims to tackle both.

Any solution should probably address these fundamental UX questions:

1. What should happen when a user submits multiline input containing
   empty lines? Should these be padded so they're not rejected by the
   server? If so, where in the processing pipeline should that occur?
   Should `erc-send-whitespace-lines' play a role here?

   This patch says yes to the latter and interprets that option as
   meaning "preserve whitespace-only lines and create them as necessary
   from blank ones." As to where padding should happen, this patch punts
   and retains the existing (unfortunate) practice of treating them at
   the last minute.

2. Should trailing blank lines be treated differently? If so, how?
   Should they be auto-padded? Simply dropped? Or should encountering
   them raise an error?

   When `erc-send-whitespace-lines' is non-nil, this patch drops
   trailing blanks by default, but it also provides an escape hatch.

3. When `erc-send-whitespace-lines' is non-nil, should it auto-pad a
   submission consisting of a single empty line? Should it allow a
   whitespace-only singleton through?

   This patch says no to the first and yes to the second.

4. Should slash commands, like /MSG be allowed to lead a multiline
   submission?

   This patch says no, still choosing to interpret commands as always
   consisting of a single line.

To offer some flexibility, I'm introducing a hook to perform some
validation on the input being submitted. It comes prepopulated with
functions that replicate existing behavior, such as ensuring point
resides within the input area. It also contains an additional function
to perform the blank-detection business. While it's true that multiple
members of this hook may end up repeating some basic operations (such as
splitting the input string), at present, this isn't the case, and such
waste is pretty negligible anyway since this is an interactive function.

There is one behavioral change being introduced that doesn't come
with an escape hatch, and that's the preservation of input when
a validation check fails. Previously, a user's input would be wiped
out, which seems undesirable and unnecessary in all cases (IMO).

For these and any other, less significant changes not mentioned, the
floor is open for questions and debate, as usual. Thanks.

(See also: "bug#50008: 28.0.50; ERC sends empty lines with user input"
and "bug#50006: 28.0.50; remove deprecated option erc-send-pre-hook".)


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.31, cairo version 1.17.4)
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Repository revision: fed9a353dbe79a7a6acc74c1e223c46e7541e627
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