Re: About `M-C-e` expand result `'` failed

[Zachary Santer]

First of all, I'd like to direct your attention back to the original email
in this thread, by A4-Tacks:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2024-01/msg00132.html
That looks a lot more like a bug, and I'm sorry I distracted from it with
my statement questioning what shell-expand-line was doing in the more
general case.

On Fri, Feb 2, 2024 at 1:26 PM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:

> Are you then suggesting a bindable readline function to quote the line
> or region? It's not reasonable to change a function that has worked one
> way for 30+ years.
>

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that a different bindable function that
performs all the shell expansions other than quote removal would be more
useful than shell-expand-line.

As much as Mike Jonkmans didn't address this in his email just now, that's
what I see in this exchange, as well:

On Fri, Feb 2, 2024 at 10:10 AM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:

> On 2/2/24 8:12 AM, Mike Jonkmans wrote:
> > I might expect that, because it would be useful to see what is going to
> be
> > executed.
>
> I don't get this part. A desire is not an expectation.


Not performing quote removal - or potentially adding backslashes - would be
more desirable. What we have in shell-expand-line seems like what the user
wanted, but not quite.

shell-expand-line didn't make a ton of sense 30+ years ago, either, but I
won't argue that its behavior should be changed, considering that
performing quote removal was apparently what was intended.

I don't even use bindable functions, really. A4-Tacks's original email just
got me curious as to what you would even do with the result if the bug he
encountered wasn't present. I finally look in that part of the manual, and
now I'm trying to remember C-x C-e, because edit-and-execute-command would
be really useful to me. I wasn't aware of an undo function, either, for
that matter. That function makes a lot of what I'm saying here moot, anyway.