Re: xref-query-replace

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 01/09/2016 06:28 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Is this command supposed to work?

You invoke it from an xref output buffer, to perform replacement across 
the results of a "find references" or "find regexp" command.

I've posted a thread about it in November: 
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-11/msg01465.html

> If so, could someone please explain
> what its argument FROM means?

Regexp to match within each match. So, if you made a search for 
xref-query-replace, you can easily replace "query" with "interactive" in 
all those matches.

Yes, it's a bit convoluted.

> I tried the command with both ELisp and etags back-ends, and it seems
> to always say "No suitable matches here".  The doc string says just
>
>    "Perform interactive replacement in all current matches."
>
> but what are "current matches"?  Matches of what?

Matches for input you've given previously to xref-find-regexp?

Maybe the command needs a check to see if the current buffer is 
xref-ish. However, since we supposedly allow output customization via 
xref--show-xref-buffer, it might as well use a different major mode than 
xref--xref-buffer-mode.