Re: C-x C-f, Tab (in)completion and visiting the wrong, new files

[David Reitter]

On 12 Aug 2007, at 19:22, Drew Adams wrote:

> > I've got several files in my directory:
> > foo.tex  foo.aux  foo.pdf  foo.1.tex  bar.txt
> >
> > I do: C-x C-f fo <TAB> <RET>
> >
> > What happens then is that only "foo." is in the minibuffer, and a
> > buffer visiting the non-existant file of that name is visited.
>
> I disagree with your proposal, David. Being able to use lax  
> completion, for
> file names and for other things, is very useful. I would not want  
> to see
> that behavior changed.

My proposal was not to change completion. My proposal was to not  
accept a RET after an incomplete completion. (But a RET RET after an  
incomplete completion would do exactly what the RET does.)

Where do you think is incomplete completion and entering of the  
incomplete string useful?

> However, what I think should happen in the case you mention, and what
> happens by default in Icicles, is that TAB immediately displays
> *Completions*, which lets you know that completion is incomplete  
> and lets
> you see the matching candidate names of the existing files.

I like the current behavior - simply because you know what files are  
there (or what you want) anyways. No need to see *Completions*.

> But in neither case (nil or non-nil) is lax completion foregone and  
> strict
> completion imposed. I would not want C-x C-f to assume that you  
> want to
> visit an existing file.

Again, that's not what I said. I said that only if completion is  
used, we assume (temporarily) that an existing file is to be visited.  
If the user completes the file name manually, then that is fine and  
it can be a new file.