Re: Generalizing find-definition

[Helmut Eller]

On Wed, Dec 03 2014, Stephen Leake wrote:

[...]
> A couple comments:
>
> The current copyright on xref.el is Helmut Eller; I assume you've got a
> copyright assignment on file.

Yes, I have the paperwork.

> I'd like to add to xref.el:
>
> (defun xref-find-definition-at-point ()
>   (interactive)
>   (xref--find-definition (xref-identifier-at-point (xref--backend)) nil))
>
> That's the function I use most often.

Hmm, xref-find-definition does this, except for the case when it's not
called interactively.  Do you need the non-interactive version?  Maybe
it would be better to make xref-find-definition more useful
non-interactively than to define an almost identical function.

> There is a FIXME on xref-push-marker-stack. I gather you'd like this to
> be independent of etags?
>
> It would not be hard to implement an independent marker ring/stack. But
> I think it makes more sense to use the etags marker ring; that way,
> if I am navigating thru code that uses multiple languages, and one
> language mode uses xref while another uses tags, there is still only one
> tag ring.
>
> Eventually, when most modes have migrated to xref, it might make sense
> to switch to a separate marker ring.

My idea was to move the ring from etags.el to xref.el and perhaps define
some aliases for backward compatibility.

Helmut