Re: Syntax tables for multiple modes [was: bug#22983: syntax-ppss returns wrong result.]

[Vitalie Spinu]

>> On Tue, Mar 22 2016 10:51, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> The second issue is with respect to the first line immediately after the
>> header.

> Since it's not on its own line, I don't see why it would be an issue
> for indentation.

It's a problem if you narrow to current span and allow inner mode to indent
first line. So one way or another, multi-mode has to interfere in this case
beyond FIRST-COLUMN hint.

Without narrowing it's not clear what is the contract that inner mode should
respect to handle previous chunk locations. It's not even clear if previous
locations should be of the same modes chunk, previous head span or maybe a set
of heterogeneous chunks.

In any case once the inner mode gets locations of previous chunks it all becomes
an very messy open question. Modes can decide to do whatever they see fit. The
STRING-BEFORE/AFTER system, not ideal of course, but it keeps the mode within
its own world and doesn't leave much space for "improvisation".

>> mode for indentation. Consider this example of erb mode taken from
>> https://github.com/fxbois/web-mode/blob/master/tests/demo.erb.>
>>     <div id='header'>
>>       <% if signed_in? -%>
>>         <%= link_to t('.sign_out'), sign_out_path, :method => :delete %>
>>       <% else -%>
>>         <%= link_to t('.sign_in'), sign_in_path %>
>>       <% end -%>
>>     </div>

>> One meaningful approach here is to indent if-else-end block using inner mode
>> rules, right?

> Another approach would be to consider it as a sequence of chunks, rather
> than as chunks of one mode nested in another.  So each chunk controls
> the FIRST-COLUMN of the next chunk.

This will not work in above case. <%else-%> chunk needs to know about where <%if
signed_in? -%> was indented which is not an immediately preceding chunk.

It's hard to think of better solution than collecting all relevant previous
chunks in one place and indenting according to inner mode. In order to indent
"<%else-%>", STRING-BEFORE should be full "link_to ..." line. So basically
STRING-BEFORE must consist of all ruby spans in between "if" and "else" chunks.

> In any case, this seems messy.

Yeh. Very much.

> As for STRING-AFTER, the example is compelling, but I don't yet
> understand really how it would all work out overall.

Neither do I. Strings are hard to process in emacs and the mode will need to
either modify current buffer by inserting it in a special region or use a
separate buffer for that.

I tend to agree with Dmitry, if you decide not to pass chunk locations to inner
modes then there is no much point in getting complicated with passing
BEFORE/AFTER strings. Multi-mode engine can take care of that satisfactory.

> How should the "generic" code that links HTML and Ruby know when to indent
> using the HTML indentation code and when to use the Ruby indentation rules?

No idea. Dmitry should have an answer for that. He implemented mmm-erb.

  Vitalie