1

When I do I-search: or I-search-backward , it starts right away from the first word it find.

Original behavior:

word1 |[cursor]word1 ; cursor moves here wor[cursor]d2 ;<= I press `ctrl+r` word [enter] |word2 word3 |word3

For example, when I am in I-search, I want to start doing backward search and press ctrl+r but in the first press it remains in the current found word (cursor move into its beginning) and on the second press to ctrl+r, `emacs jumps to the found word on backward.

Example:

word1 |word1 wor[cursor]d2 ;<= I press `ctrl+s` word [enter] |word2 word3 |word3[cursor]; cursor moves here

then

word1 |word1 word2 |word2 word3[cursor] ;<= I press `ctrl+r` word [enter] |[cursor]word3 ; cursor moves here

at this stage I want cursor to move beginning of word2 like it should do on its original behavior.

=> I was wondering when the switch from I-search: to I-search-backward or visa versa, can the action take place on the first click instead of two?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

It's all based on where the cursor is when you start the search.

C-hig (emacs)Basic Isearch says:

A backward search finds matches that end before the starting point, just as a forward search finds matches that begin after it.

Hence for:

word1 wor[cursor]d2 word3

Searching backwards for word cannot find word2 because that instance of "word" doesn't end before [cursor].

word1 word2 word3[cursor]

Searching backwards here, we will initially find word3, as that instance of "word" ends before [cursor].

Edit: The following is extremely minimally tested, but give this a whirl:

(define-advice isearch-repeat (:before (direction &optional count) goto-other-end) "If reversing, start the search from the other end of the current match." (unless (eq isearch-forward (eq direction 'forward)) (when isearch-other-end (goto-char isearch-other-end))))
Improve this answer
7
  • Wow your code works perfect, I don't know how it makes the magic but thank you Commented May 31, 2020 at 15:33
  • I found a small bug, not sure could it be related to this. On following example (gist.github.com/avatar-lavventura/…) when I do C-s on top of first _PATH work it does not see the second _PATH. But when I add space after the second _PATH word it sees that Commented Mar 4, 2021 at 11:25
  • I can't replicate that. I assume you're searching for _PATH. Please test starting from emacs -Q Commented Mar 4, 2021 at 14:02
  • I haven't understood the problem, in that case. Please give a recipe to reproduce this starting from emacs -Q. Ask a new question if you can't do it in a comment (but if you do that, please firstly verify whether the code in this Answer actually makes a difference, as there's no purpose in referencing this if it's not relevant). Commented Mar 4, 2021 at 20:31
  • 1
    Emacs 27.1 added an optional argument, so I've updated the advice to match. Commented Jul 24, 2021 at 2:14

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.