Subject: RE: bug#14742: 24.3.50; enhancement request: be able to prepend stuff from buffer when search backward

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 16:02:58 -0700 (PDT)

> It's easy to find a name for the new arg of `isearch-yank-string'.
> By default, it appends a string to the end of the search string,
> so a new arg for opposite meaning could have the name `prepend'
> to prepend a string to the beginning of the search string.
> 
> But what could be a name for the new arg of `isearch-del-char'?
> By default, it deletes a substring from the end of the search string.
> And with a non-nil new arg it will delete a substring from the
> beginning of the search string.  What about the name `behead'

1. I would stay away from something like "behead" - that's
stretching things.  We don't commonly think of the "head" of a
search string.

I'd suggest not looking for a verb at all - the verb is already
in the command name.

2. Just use a name for the position, not the action: e.g. START or
BEGINNING.  (I would stay away from FRONT & BACK too, as references
to the search-string ends.  BACK is particularly problematic.)

PREPEND is not too bad if you do prefer a verb, but if you use
a position name then you can use the same name for multiple actions.
For this reason, for instance, BEGINNING is better than
FROM-BEGINNING & TO-BEGINNING.

3. To me, yanking stuff to the beginning is more important than
deleting stuff from the beginning.  I was thinking either have a
separate key (or set of keys) that is (are) analogous to the
yank-at-end key(s) or else just reuse the same keys when searching
backward.

I would probably go with the latter (same keys).  How useful is
it to incrementally yank more stuff in a forward-buffer direction
when searching backward?

I guess the same could be done for deletion as for yanking: reuse
the same keys.