Re: How to handle default value in read-string?

[John Mastro]

> I'd like read-string to somehow indicate the default value.  A natural
> idea is to include it in the prompt, for example having a prompt like
>
> (format "Foo (%s): " default)
>
> However, Icicles' version of read-string already does exactly that, so
> for Icicles users this would be superfluous.
>
> So here's the question: is there a better way than just have a prompt of
>
> (if icicle-mode (don't-include-default) (do-include-default))?

There's no getting around that you'll need a condition somewhere.
However, you can of course wrap it up in a helper function, so you're
not repeating the condition every time you use `read-string'.

    (defun my-read-string (prompt &optional ...)
      (unless (bound-and-true-p icicle-mode)
        (setq prompt (concat prompt " (%s)" default)))
      (read-string prompt ...))

You could use advice to do the same thing but I don't think it would be
an improvement in this case.

-- 
john