Re: yank in search minibuffer doesn't yank

[David Reitter]

On 30 Oct 2005, at 03:37, Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> The way to pull the kill ring text into the search string is M-y.
> Do C-s M-y.

Thanks, my bad.

On a second thought, I did do a C-s C-h k C-y and was told that C-y  
is yank (or cua-paste in cua-mode), and M-y is found  to be bound to  
Cua-paste-pop (with cua-mode on), which is described as "Replace a  
just-pasted text or rectangle with a different text|" (even though M- 
y works).

The fact that I can't use the usual C-y, and the fact that C-y  
doesn't even yank into the original buffer, is confusing.
C-y works fine with anything else in the minibuffer, and if  
incremental search isn't using the normal minibuffer mechanisms, that  
is confusing and not visually communicated to the user.

The manual says:

> "The characters C-y and C-w can be used in incremental search to  
> grab text from the buffer into the search string ... C-y is similar  
> to C-w but copies all the rest of the current line into the search  
> string."

I don't understand why a fairly specialized functionality (copying  
the rest of the current line) is bound to a key where it overrides  
one of the most commonly used functions ever.