Re: [emacs-bidi] adding LRM in visual-to-logical transform

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Alex Schroeder wrote:

> Logical buffer contents: "my CAR123"
> Visual appearance:       "my 123RAC"
> Search String typed:     "my 123CAR"
> 
> Note that the search string will display just the same "my 123RAC".

You are forgetting that the user is a human, not a program ;-)

It's true that UAX#9 produces the same output for different inputs in
some cases (in some of those cases, what UAX#9 does is nonsensical,
but we cannot do much about that).  However, the user does know what
she typed in the text, because the result, as displayed, should
_make_sense_to_her_.  If it doesn't make sense, she will retype,
perhaps in a different order, or will insert some directional
formatting codes.

So the answer to the original issue is: I'm assuming the user types
the search string in the same order as the original text was typed.

It is still possible that the search will fail, because the above
assumption is not true in some cases.  But if those cases are rare,
the user will simply assume that the search string was typed
incorrectly and will try another one, perhaps just "CAR".  I'm sure
this happens to you, as indeed to any one of us, all the time, even
without bidi complications ;-)  If the search fails, we try a slightly
different search string.

Therefore, the need for a visual search should be very rare.