bug#69097: [PATCH] Add 'kill-region-or-word' command

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>
> Cc: rms@gnu.org,  69097@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 03 May 2024 17:32:35 +0000
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> Cc: rms@gnu.org, 69097@debbugs.gnu.org
> >> Date: Fri, 03 May 2024 13:59:00 +0300
> >> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> >> 
> >> > From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>
> >> > Cc: 69097@debbugs.gnu.org,  Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> >> > Date: Fri, 03 May 2024 10:48:13 +0000
> >> > 
> >> > > More to the point, can you explain why we need this, given the
> >> > > existence of kill-word?
> >> > >
> >> > > Also, this kills backward, something that is not evident, neither from
> >> > > the name of the command nor from the doc string (and the obscure
> >> > > reference to Unix doesn't help, IMO).
> >> > >
> >> > > Finally, having another command that kills the region doesn't seem
> >> > > justified, or is it?
> >> > 
> >> > The motivation is sort of the same as with generalising `upcase-word' to
> >> > `upcase-dwim'.  If there is no active region, it behaves like
> >> > `backward-kill-word' (which is what C-w does in a terminal as well), but
> >> > if there is an active region it reverts to `kill-ring-save'.
> >> 
> >> If so, then (assuming we decide to accept this change), the name of
> >> the command should be something like kill-word-dwim, and the doc
> >> string should mention the two commands you refer to above.
> >> 
> >> > I have this in my personal configuration for ages, and it is always
> >> > one of the first things I re-implement when using an Emacs without a
> >> > custom init.el.
> >> 
> >> Any reason why you need this command and cannot settle for the two
> >> commands it replaces heuristically?  Are you using Emacs with
> >> transient-mark-mode on or off?
> >
> > And one more question: currently C-w signals an error if there's no
> > region.  So another idea is to extend C-w to delete the word at point
> > if there's no region (where "no region" means "no active region" if
> > transient-mark-mode is ON, otherwise it means "no mark set").
> 
> That is basically what my command does (with the difference that I don't
> just check if (mark) is non-nil but also if (use-region-p) is non-nil),
> just not part of kill-region.  I don't know if this is too invasive, if
> users are used to this error being signalled.  Perhaps it can be
> protected by a user option?

I don't think anyone wants the error, so doing something useful in
that case should be a no-brainer.