Subject: bug#14973: Unfill for Emacs

From: Josh <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:31:02 -0700

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Jambunathan K <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>>> You need a special command to replace one character by another?
>
> This is what I use for deleting newlines and thus create "long" lines.
> Seem to work well for me.
>
> ,----
> | M-^ runs the command delete-indentation, which is an interactive
> | compiled Lisp function in `simple.el'.
> |
> | It is bound to M-^.
> |
> | (delete-indentation &optional ARG)
> |
> | Join this line to previous and fix up whitespace at join.
> | If there is a fill prefix, delete it from the beginning of this line.
> | With argument, join this line to following line.
> `----

Perhaps it would make sense to extend delete-indentation to apply to
active regions in the same way as commands like replace-string,
whitespace-cleanup, etc.  This could make "unfilling" a paragraph as
simple as M-h M-^, perhaps with an intervening C-n to move point to
the desired position.  Alternatively, a bare negative prefix argument
(M-- M-^) could trigger that behavior without need of an active
region.