GNU bug report logs - #1286
comment-dwim on a comment line does not toggle comment

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From: xah lee <xah <at> xahlee.org>
To: Xavier Maillard <xma <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 1286 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org,
        bug-submit-list <at> donarmstrong.com
Subject: bug#1286: comment-dwim on a comment line does not toggle comment
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 13:10:24 -0800

Xavier Maillard wrote:
«For my point of view, this is well defined here and it behaves just  
as described.»

I agree it's well defined and documented. However, i think it is not  
intuitive, even people who have used emacs for 3 or more years and  
are familiar with its terminologies and behaviors.

when a cursor is on a comment line (whole line is comment) and  
there's no active region, i don't see any reason it shouldn't just  
uncomment the line when calling comment-dwim. I would say that, any  
person, including those using emacs for 3 or more years, who are  
using comment-dwim for the first time, would expect it to uncomment it.

is there a reason why it shouldn't uncomment other than “it's that  
way for long”?

PS I only started to use comment-dwim in this or last year. In the  
past, i've always used string-rectangle and kill-rectangle. I started  
to use emacs daily in a day job since 1998, and for the first 7 years  
i use it exclusively in terminals.

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄
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On Nov 3, 2008, at 3:25 AM, Xavier Maillard wrote:


   this appears to be like a bug.

   in emacs-lisp-mode, if you have a comment like this:

   ;; This is a comment

   and your cursor is somewhere on that line. Now, do comment-dwim, it
   doesn't uncomment the line. It just moves the cursor to the  T
   in  This .

   Same behavior in cperl mode and probably all others.

   I think this might be by design, but it seems counter-intuitive.

I am sure you read it but just in case:

comment-dwim is an interactive autoloaded Lisp function in
`newcomment.el'.

It is bound to M-;.

(comment-dwim ARG)

Call the comment command you want (Do What I Mean).
If the region is active and `transient-mark-mode' is on, call
  `comment-region' (unless it only consists of comments, in which
  case it calls `uncomment-region').
Else, if the current line is empty, call `comment-insert-comment- 
function'
if it is defined, otherwise insert a comment and indent it.
Else if a prefix ARG is specified, call `comment-kill'.
Else, call `comment-indent'.
You can configure `comment-style' to change the way regions are  
commented.

For my point of view, this is well defined here and it behaves
just as described.

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