Re: [Nano-devel] the way of matching a syntax (to use for coloring)

[Chris Allegretta]

SGTM Benno!

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Benno Schulenberg
<address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Currently, when nano goes about determining which syntax to
> use for coloring the contents of a file, there a five steps.
> (A given syntax name, the name of the file, the contents of
> the first line, a magic match, and as last resort a default.)
>
> The "problem" is: four of those steps take the matching syntax
> that was defined last, the other one takes the matching one
> that was defined first.
>
> The one that takes the first match is the libmagic match, and
> this has been so from the beginning, five years ago.  I think
> it is wrong, because it prevents the user from defining in her
> .nanorc a syntax with a magicstring that overrides that match.
>
> * So I intend to change the libmagic matching behavior to mimic
> the behavior of the other four steps.
>
> (At a later stage I intend to turn the list of syntaxes around,
> last one first, so that it becomes a little quicker to find the
> last-defined one, and easier to add items.)
>
> Also, currently, when an empty syntax is selected (a syntax
> that was not followed by any color commands), nano acts as
> if nothing was specified and uses the default syntax instead.
> I think this is wrong: when the user specified something, she
> should get what she asked for: in this case an empty, and
> therefore colorless syntax.
>
> I've become aware that nano behaves this way because on help-nano
> someone asked how to switch off all syntax coloring.  When you're
> on the univeristy's computer, you don't have access to /etc/nanorc
> so you can't disable any includes there.  Of course it's possible
> to make an alias (alias nano="nano --syntax=none"), but there is
> no elegant way to do this in the user's .nanorc.  Specifying
>
>     syntax "all" ".*"
>
> on the last line is not enough, because then you will get the
> default syntax coloring.  You have to add some color command:
>
>     color green "^$"
>
> That should not be necessary.  (Of course you will get a warning
> that there is a syntax without color commands, but maybe we can
> suppress that one when at the end of file.)
>
> * So I intend to let nano choose the default syntax only when
> absolutely nothing matched.  If anything matched, even if it's
> empty, then that is taken.
>
> Comments?
>
> Benno
>
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