comint-insert-input on non-command lines: A trivial fix, a quibble, and a bug

[Nick Roberts]

 >    The name comint-insert-input suggests that it inserts (old) input so
 >    to do nothing when the point isn't over input seems appropriate to me.
 > 
 > The name comint-insert-input does suggest that it should be inserting
 > something, so I found "doing nothing" surprising.  At the very least, it
 > should explain why it is refusing do what I am obviously asking.

It could give a message "No input here".  I'll see if I can do that.

 >     >                                              This seems to be because
 >     > comint-insert-input is trying to invoke the "RET" binding, but doesn't
 >     > allow for the fact that this-command-keys returns a string.  
 > 
 >    Its because comint-insert-input can also be invoked by mouse-2 which
 >    falls back to the global binding (generally mouse-yank-at-click).
 > 
 > OK.  But why wouldn't this be a reasonable thing to do for keyboard
 > input as well?

It does.  The keyboard input in this case (C-c RET) doesn't have a global
binding: thats why it does nothing.

 >     >                                            In contrast, I never expect
 >     > insertion when I type "C-c RET"; besides which, the side-effects of an
 >     > accidental "C-c RET" are easier to undo.  So if "safety" were the 
 > reason
 >     > ...
 > 
 >    It isn't the reason.  We have tried to combine two commands with a
 >    similar functionality (comint-insert-clicked-input, comint-copy-old-input)
 > 
 > So the loss of functionality was accidental, then?

I can't remember but I don't find it unfortunate.

 >    Again the name comint-copy-old-input doesn't suggest this behaviour and
 >    my preference would be not to have it.
 > 
 > That depends on how narrowly you want to define "input."

Well, I would certainly exclude output from my definition. 

 > Well, I found it within an hour of building emacs from CVS, having used
 > distro versions for many years now.  It's possible that I'm the only one
 > who ever uses C-c RET on output lines . . . but somehow I doubt that.

The patch I've installed works on output lines when comint-use-prompt-regexp
is non-nil.  Does this do what you want?

-- 
Nick                                           http://www.inet.net.nz/~nickrob