query-replace-regexp slow for evaluated lisp expressions

[Aaron S. Hawley]

Search and evaluated replace expressions with `query-replace-regexp'  
are a bit slow and do not scale well to large files, even with the  
simplest of lisp expressions, in particular when using automatic  
replace of all matches by hitting "!"?

For instance, create a buffer `foo' with 200 lines of "foo":

  C-x b foo RET
  C-x ( foo RET C-x )
  C-u 200 C-x e

Then, do the most basic of replacements that would never be done in
practice, but shows how slow interactive regexp replacements can be:
Search for "foo" and just format the complete match as a string with a
lisp expression, and type "!" to do it to all of them:

  M-< C-M-% foo RET \,(format "%s" \&) RET !

Compare this with:

  M-< C-M-% foo RET foo RET !

Much quicker.  The former "animates" each replacement showing it being  
done, almost as if Emacs is hitting "y" interactively for me, rather  
than just zooming through them all, as the latter does.

Thanks for Emacs.
/a

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In GNU Emacs 23.0.0.1 (powerpc-apple-darwin8.8.0, *Step 9.0-rc1)
 of 2006-12-24 on yesod.local
configured using `configure '--with-ns' '--without-x'  
'--prefix=/Users/arobert/src/EmacsApp/emacs/nextstep/build/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources' '--exec_prefix=/Users/arobert/src/EmacsApp/emacs/nextstep/build/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS' '--libexecdir=/Users/arobert/src/EmacsApp/emacs/nextstep/build/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec' '--with-pop' '--enable-font-backend' 'CC=gcc-4.0' 'CFLAGS=-g -O2 -arch ppc -arch i386 -isysroot  
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  delete-selection-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
M-% f o o <return> ! M-< M-< C-M-s M-p <return> M-%
M-p M-p C-k \ & <return> ! <M-tab> C-x b * s c <tab>
<return> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-k C-_ <help-echo> C-x b
C-g C-g C-x b C-g C-g C-x C-b C-x o C-n C-n C-n C-p
<return> <help-echo> M-< C-v M-< C-g C-g C-x o C-n
C-k r e p o <tab> r <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
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Undo!
Quit [4 times]
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