filecache.el questions

[Ted Zlatanov]

Hi,

in using filecache.el I found two issues I have for now addressed on my
own:

1) the file-cache-alist is never saved.  This is a problem with large
file sets (incidentally, it would be nice if Emacs had a native way of
storing large data sets in an external database, as I mentioned).  I
wrote a serialization function that essentially dumps with prin1 and
princ and reads back with eval.  I also added a variable with the list
of locations that should be scanned at startup.

I wanted to ask if I should submit that as a patch.  filecache.el seems
pretty lean so I wasn't sure if I should add that kind of weight to it.

2) multiple alternatives are proposed sequentially (with repeated C-u
C-TAB).  For example, if hello.c is in /data and /data2:

/tmp/hello.c[C-TAB] -> /data/hello.c[C-u C-TAB] -> /data2/hello.c[C-u C-TAB]

The message displayed is just "1 of 2" and "2 of 2".  I modified the
message to say:

1 of 2
*1:/data/hello.c*
 2:/data2/hello.c

2 of 2
 1:/data/hello.c
*2:/data2/hello.c*

but that's just a hack, not as good as completing-read on the
alternatives (this is why I'm not submitting a patch).  Has
completing-read been considered for the multiple matches case?

Thanks
Ted