Subject: bug#20425: 24.5; completion-at-point not working with prefix starting with '(:'

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 00:47:33 -0400

tags 20425 notabug
thanks

> * Start vanilla emacs via emacs -q
> * Switch to scratch buffer
> * Enter the string '(:backg'
> * Toggle completion-at-point (using C-M-i and M-x makes no difference)
[ Nitpick: "toggle" is not what you mean to stay. ]

> * Emacs will incorrectly report that no matches have been found

But this is correct: the scratch buffer is intended for Elisp code, and
(:background ...) is not valid Elisp code because there is
no :background function (or macro).

> The above is just a specific example.  In general completion-at-point is
> not correctly completing for all of emacs' keywords which start with a
> colon if the colon is preceded by '('.

Could you provide some other example, where the "colon something" fails
to complete, whereas it really should be completed (because indeed, it
is not in a position corresponding to a function call)?

        Stefan