Re: User format functions - text properies get lost (XEmacs)

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

Paul Moore <gustav@morpheus.demon.co.uk> writes:

> +(defun gnus-simple-format (str &rest objects)
> +  ;; A replacement for FORMAT which only handles %s and %% formats.
> +  ;; Xemacs FORMAT does not preserve text properties on the input
> +  ;; strings, whereas this version does. Without this function, returning
> +  ;; strings with properties set from user-defined spec functions does not
> +  ;; work in xemacs. Arguably, this function should just be an alias for
> +  ;; format in FSF emacs (where properties are preserved), for speed if
> +  ;; nothing else.
> +  (with-temp-buffer
> +    (insert str)
> +    (goto-char (point-min))
> +    (while (search-forward "%s" nil t)
> +      (let ((obj (car objects)))
> +	(replace-match (if (stringp obj) obj (format "%s" obj))
> +		       nil t))
> +      (setq objects (cdr objects)))
> +    (gnus-replace-in-string (buffer-string) "%%" "%")))

Two issues come to my mind.  First of all, what happens if you have
"%%s" in the string?  I think that this function is buggy in that
case.  Secondly, converting the string to a buffer and then (for
gnus-replace-in-string) back to a string does not appear to be very
efficient.

Maybe you could search for the regexp "%[%s]", the look at
match-string (that's what actually matched the regex) and do
different things depending on that.  Does this make sense?

kai
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