Re: require-hard-newlines to use newline

[Oliver Scholz]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>     Because, everywhere else in the buffer, the newline at the end of a
>     paragraph is hard.
>
> That doesn't seem like a convincing reason.
>
>     Now suppose the user goes to another buffer to do his editing, and comes
>     back to this buffer a long time later. He does not remember the exact
>     sequence of edits he performed on that buffer -- in particular, whether he
>     typed RET or not. From moving point around, he observes that the buffer
>     contains "some text" followed by a final newline.
>
> If he did not finish the paragraph, he will probably assume the
> newline is soft.  If he did finish the paragraph, he will probably
> assume the newline is hard.  Either way, he might be wrong.
>
> So I think that use-hard-newlines should inhibit the effect of
> require-final-newline.  It is the only way to get reliable results.

Sorry if I missed something: as I understand it the problem arises
from the fact that `require-final-newline' will not only make sure
that the *file* ends with a newline, but will that newline add to the
*buffer*.

If I understand things correctly, the problem would go away, if
require-f-n would just add the newline when writing the file but not
to the buffer (a bit similar to a function in
`write-region-annotate-functions') . Then the user would only come to
see it, if she reverts the buffer; in this case it is longlines.el's
job to use its heuristics to detect whether the final newline is hard
or soft.

    Oliver
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