Re: C-x C-f, Tab (in)completion and visiting the wrong, new files

[David Reitter]

On 12 Aug 2007, at 21:12, Drew Adams wrote:

> If you have a habit of hitting TAB RET, then you are, in effect,  
> expecting
> TAB to complete to a complete match, so that RET will open the  
> existing file
> whose name matches. With that expectation, incomplete matches throw  
> you off.

Absolutely.

> In that case, you want TAB to complete only against existing files,  
> no? Then
> why not bind `file-file-existing'? That's what it's for.

I think I suggested this originally. However, this would prevent  
users from creating new buffers as intended, or it would require us  
to come up with a new (and short) key combination.

I also thought that the input errors with the incomplete matches may  
be part of a common pattern that does not just apply to file names.  
In other completion cases where there is an ambiguity (e.g., M-x tex  
RET), the input is not accepted, and if there is no ambiguity, the  
input is autocompleted (e.g., M-x text RET).