Re: history-search-backward

["Bart Schaefer" <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 31, 11:47am, Peter Stephenson wrote:
} Subject: history-search-backward
}
} Looks like another incompatibility got in while I wasn't paying much
} attention: ^[p will only search backwards on complete words.  (I
} remember the discussion, not the conclusion, I presume this is
} intentional.)  It seems to me this is going to cause lots of zsh users
} endless confusion when they type part of a word, then ^[p, and nothing
} happens.
} 
} It's also incompatible with the tcsh binding (it always was a bit, but
} not so drastically).  It makes it essentially useless for me, too,
} since I use it as a way of abbreviating the first word of a command,
} but that's personal taste and I can live with
} history-beginning-search-backward.

I have to completely agree with Peter here.

I have both history-search-backward and history-beginning-search-backward
bound to keys, and use them for different things, but in both cases I
expect them to work on partial words; the only difference I expect is
whether they match against a prefix of the first word or a prefix of the
whole line.

On Jan 31, 12:16pm, Zefram wrote:
} Subject: Re: history-search-backward
}
} That's what history-beginning-search-backward is for.  It may cause
} confusion, but only minimally, as the old behaviour wasn't documented.

I think you have no idea how wrong you are.

On Jan 31,  1:42pm, Peter Stephenson wrote:
} Subject: Re: history-search-backward
}
} Problem is, history-beginning-search-backward only got added a few
} versions ago and has never been bound, while the
} history-search-backward behaviour, partly inherited from tcsh, has
} been around for years and years whether documented or not and I don't
} imagine the general confusion will be any less.

Exactly.

} It should go in the NEWS file when the release becomes official and
} I'll put it in the FAQ.

I can't accept that as sufficient in this case.

-- 
Bart Schaefer                             Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts            http://www.nbn.com/people/lantern