Re: case conversion by replace-match

[Kevin Rodgers]

Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Roland Winkler <roland.winkler@physik.uni-erlangen.de> writes:
>
> |> Start a fresh emacs --no-init-file
> |> 
> |> define the following function
> |> 
> |> (defun foo ()
> |>   (interactive)
> |>   (let (case-fold-search)
> |>     (while (search-forward "=FC" nil t)
> |>       (replace-match (string 252) nil t))))
> |> 
> |> `(string 252)' gives a lowercase umlaut-u (iso-latin-1)
> |> 
> |> However, when foo is run in a buffer containing the string "=FC",
> |> this string will be replaced with an uppercase umlaut-U.
>
> Exactly as documented.


That's what I thought at first.  Then I thought the "=" obviously means that
not all the characters in the replacement text are capital letters, so NEXTEXT
should not be uppercase'd.  But then I thought the "=" divides the replacement
text into 2 words, an empty word and an uppercase word; so if the empty word is
ignored and an uppercase word is considered to be capitalized, then (each word
in) the replacement text should be capitalized.

But  really, that's all just a rationalization to support the observed behavior.
The user should specify FIXEDCASE as t if he/she knows that NEWTEXT is is case-
precise.  And Emacs should not consider "=FC" to be a sequence of capitalized
words.

> If you don't want this, pass a non-nil second
> argument to replace-match:
>
>     If second arg FIXEDCASE is non-nil, do not alter case of replacement text.
>     Otherwise maybe capitalize the whole text, or maybe just word initials,
>     based on the replaced text.
>     If the replaced text has only capital letters
>     and has at least one multiletter word, convert NEWTEXT to all caps.
>     Otherwise if all words are capitalized in the replaced text,
>     capitalize each word in NEWTEXT.


--
<a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;";>Kevin Rodgers</a>