Kakoune: search history is restored even with empty -save-regs

[voroskoi]

Steps

Run :execute-keys -save-regs '' /
Search for foo
Press /

Outcome

I can see foo in search history.

Expected

As -save-regs is provided empty, foo should not show up in search history.

I would like to create a simple command for just jumping around the buffer with search, but I do not want to pollute search history

[Screwtapello]

execute-keys saves and restores the / register by default. If you execute-keys -save-regs '' then it saves and restores no registers, so it makes sense that changes to the search register would persist after execute-keys is over.

One the other hand, execute-keys / should save and restore the / register, but the thing you search for is still in the search history after the execute-keys completes. That seems like a bug.

[alexherbo2]

@Screwtapello Isn’t the normal behavior as it is completed by the user?

[Screwtapello]

Now that I think about this a little more, I think this is akin to #3753.

When you do :exec / and let the user type foo<ret>, what happens is:

• exec saves the slash register (among others)
• exec executes the / key, queuing up a search operation
• having executed its last key, exec restores the slash register (among others)
• Kakoune sees a search operation is queued up, and displays the search prompt.
• the user types "foo" and hits Enter
• the new search string is appended to the slash register

As another example, consider the following command:

execute-keys / ; echo search completed

You might expect this to:

• open the search prompt
• wait for the user to enter a regex
• jump to the next match
• display "search completed"

Instead, what happens is:

• open the search prompt
• display "search completed" over the top of it
• wait for the user to enter a regex, etc.

There are good, solid dosign reasons why Kakoune does the second thing rather than the first thing, and I expect it would be a huge rewrite of Kakoune to make it work the way people expect, but maybe there's some way to add stronger dependencies between events without completely abandoning the async model.

[voroskoi]

Thank You, @Screwtapello for clarifying this for me. I have thought that -save-regs will make kakoune save those register changes, instead of discarding them. So it should work the other way around.

And I totally expected the behavior You implied and run into this entry-key loophole explained in #3753 too :-( My workaround is using NormalIdle hook -once to pop up the user mode each time. Asyinc is tricky :-)

[alexherbo2]

What you can do is add a ModeChange hook to restore the register when leaving the prompt.