[slime-devel] slime-who-calls and the *slime-xref* buffer

[Helmut Eller]

On Sun, Nov 25 2012, Zach Beane wrote:

> I'm using a SLIME snapshot from October 13th.
>
> When I use slime-who-calls to list the calls to a function
> (e.g. ql-http:fetch), the frame splits, and the window with the xref
> info shows something like this:
>
>     /Users/xach/src/quicklisp-client/dist.lisp
>       (DEFMETHOD ENSURE-SYSTEM-INDEX-FILE (DIST))
>       (DEFMETHOD ENSURE-LOCAL-ARCHIVE-FILE (RELEASE))
>       (DEFMETHOD ENSURE-RELEASE-INDEX-FILE (DIST))
>       (DEFMETHOD AVAILABLE-VERSIONS (DIST))
>     /Users/xach/src/quicklisp-client/dist-update.lisp
>       INSTALL-DIST
>       (DEFMETHOD AVAILABLE-UPDATE (DIST))
>     ...
>
> The cursor is placed at the beginning of the first line.
>
> As I move my cursor down in the xref window, the other window jumps to
> each use of the function that corresponds to the line containing the
> cursor.
>
> However, when the cursor reaches the second file pathname line, the xref
> buffer is replaced in the window with a buffer showing the file in
> question. I can no longer move up and down in the xref buffer to show
> calls to the function.

Usually the cursor skips over the pathname line, e.g. when you are at
(DEFMETHOD AVAILABLE-VERSIONS (DIST)) and press the cursor down key then
the cursor moves ahead to INSTALL-DIST.

> I expected to be able to continue to use the xref buffer until I hit
> SPACE for slime-goto-xref, or used some other window management option
> to close it.

That what is supposed to happen and works like this for me.

> Are my expectations reasonable? Have I possibly screwed up my local
> configuration? Is the behavior different in CVS slime? What would you
> recommend I do?

Moving around in the xref buffer will eventually call
slime-show-source-location.  There we use save-selected-window that
should prevent the kind of behavior that you describe.  Maybe you have
some Emacs version where save-selected-window is broken?  You could
insert some debug code like:

(defun slime-show-source-location (source-location &optional no-highlight-p)
  (message "before: %s %s" (current-buffer) (selected-window))
  (save-selected-window   ; show the location, but don't hijack focus.
    (slime-goto-source-location source-location)
    (unless no-highlight-p (slime-highlight-sexp))
    (slime-show-buffer-position (point)))
  (message " after: %s %s" (current-buffer) (selected-window)))

and then look in the *Messages* buffer to verify that the buffer was
actually changed.

Helmut