Subject: Re: bug#37489: 27.0.50; Make `debbugs-gnu-search' work with `repeat-complex-command'

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 05:00:50 +0200

Michael Albinus <[email-masked]> writes:

> The appended patch shall do the job, you might test.

Seems to work fine, yes, thanks.

> However, I fear we will open a Pandora's box. We must set both
> debbugs-gnu-current-query and debbugs-gnu-current-filter, it depends
> on whether PHRASE is a string, or not. And even the allowed arguments
> in both cases are different. So it is very easy to make it wrong when
> editing the argument list. Even *I* would need to consult the
> implementation, in order to know what's allowed, and what's
> not.

I don't find it this problematic.  It's ok when not all combinations of
arguments are allowed.  But instead of consulting the implementation, it
would of course be better to describe limitations in the docstring.  If
it gets too complicated, maybe the list of arguments could be changed to
reflect the implementation even more.

Anyway, the patch is all that I wanted.  If the command barks the last
resort is to go through the queries again, which I have to do now
anyway.

> I would add some further sanity checks for QUERY, before callings
> debbugs-gnu.

That might be appropriate, but adding some details to the docstring in
addition along the way might not be wrong, too.  You don't even need to
explain each argument in detail (maybe you could even point to other
functions' docstring for that?), just enough to let me know what would
not work.  FWIW, I never called the command with an empty phrase, since
I didn't know that this is allowed and even then I would rather expect
that the server would blacklist me :-)

Regards,

Michael.