Subject: Re: bug#3717: M-x man completion

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:54:19 -0500

>> If you complete from "li" it gives "lib (", which will make man error
>> out.
> What man error?  I see no problem here.  If the user sees an incomplete
> manual name with the opening parenthesis, then s?he continues to complete it
> to the specific section name.

Maybe, but maybe the user doesn't want to care.  "lib" is a valid name
to pass to man, so completion should provide it.  After all, M-x man
can show *all* the pages found, so the choice of section can be
made later.

>> I also put in stuff like "3erl lib", since you can enter it like that to
>> man, and it can be easier to give the section first then complete among
>> pages in the section, as opposed to a section suffix.

> This duplicates completions for every manual name with e.g.
> "lib (3erl)" and "3erl lib".

Yes, a better way to do it would be to consider "3erl " "as
a directory", i.e. the completion table should recognize it and set
a "boundary" right there.  It doesn't need to provide completion for the
section names.

> For the format "lib (3erl)", you can narrow all completions to the
> specific section with `M-x man RET * (3erl) TAB'.  But for the
> "3erl lib" format, it is easier to type `M-x man RET 3erl TAB'.

You could also do it via M-x man RET 3erl C-a TAB since a * is
implicitly added at point.

        Stefan