:help :check inconsistent with :check

John Little

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Jun 1, 2019, 8:27:48 PM6/1/19

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I just struck an inconsistency that had me confused.

I was watching a steadily growing log file, and with autoread set, I used the command

:check

and nothing happened (but for a message I didn't understand). So I went to the help and ran

:help :check

and got the help for the command I thought I was running. Eventually I worked out that :check is actually :checkpath, and I should have used :checktime.

But surely ":h :xyz" should give the help for ":xyz", but am I missing something?

Tony Mechelynck

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Jun 1, 2019, 9:54:53 PM6/1/19

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The online help has a tag for the full command (:checktime or
:checkpath) and for the _shortest_ abbreviation. Now the shortest
abbreviation for :checkpath is :che, not :check; so :help :check will
get you the first tag found which begins with :check, not necessarily
the ex-command for which :check is accepted as an abbreviation (for
this, line 827 of doc/tagsrch.txt would have had to be:
*che* *chec* *check* *checkp* *checkpa* *checkpat* *checkpath*
instead of just the first and last ones of these; similarly for _all_
other ex-commands, which I believe would have made the doc/tags file
much bigger.

:help :check<Tab> (with 'wildmenu' on) or :help :check<Ctrl-D> would
have shown you all helptags beginning with :check, namely :checkt,
:checkpath and :checktime. It would also _not_ have shown you :check
because there is no help tag so named.

Best regards,
Tony.

John Little

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Jun 2, 2019, 6:48:56 AM6/2/19

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On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 1:54:53 PM UTC+12, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> for this, line 827 of doc/tagsrch.txt would have had to be:
> *che* *chec* *check* *checkp* *checkpa* *checkpat* *checkpath*
> instead of just the first and last ones of these; similarly for _all_
> other ex-commands, which I believe would have made the doc/tags file
> much bigger.

Extra tags would only be needed where there's ambiguity. I compiled a list; the middle column is what you get if you type the given at the : command prompt, and the third column is the topic you get if you ask for help for the given:

One or two extra tags for each of these is not going to significantly add to vim's 10,000 or so.

> :help :check<Tab> (with 'wildmenu' on) or :help :check<Ctrl-D> would
> have shown you all helptags beginning with :check

How would I have known to do that, when I did not know that there might be another command starting with "check"? I use the help when I don't know stuff, that's the point of it.

Regards, John Little

Tony Mechelynck

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Jun 2, 2019, 7:04:37 AM6/2/19

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On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 12:48 PM John Little <john.b...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > :help :check<Tab> (with 'wildmenu' on) or :help :check<Ctrl-D> would
> > have shown you all helptags beginning with :check
>
> How would I have known to do that, when I did not know that there might be another command starting with "check"? I use the help when I don't know stuff, that's the point of it.
>
> Regards, John Little

Well, I suppose it's a question of how we relate to encyclopaedic
sources of information. When I was a little kid, I would spend hours
with the 7-volume dictionary (7 thick folio volumes IIRC); nowadays I
can spend hours going from subject to subject by following hotlinks in
the Wikipedia — or in the Vim help; and it proves to me how true was
the remark of Socrates: «The more I know, and the more I'm conscious
of how little I know».

How would you have known, when you didn't know there was another
comand starting with :check? Well, seeing that the help didn't jibe
with what you saw, you might have wondered if there weren't another
command starting with :check, and asked for a list — if you had known
how to; though the <Tab> key is used for more than one kind of
completion, and it is very useful.

Best regards,
Tony.

Bram Moolenaar

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Jun 2, 2019, 7:22:55 AM6/2/19

to vim...@googlegroups.com, John Little

The tag of :checkpath is ":che", which is the shortest form. Apparently
for ":help :check" it finds ":checkt" or ":checktime" first.
I'll add a tag for ":check" at ":checkpath", that will fix it.

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Bram Moolenaar

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Jun 2, 2019, 7:49:06 AM6/2/19

to vim...@googlegroups.com, John Little

John Little wrote:

> On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 1:54:53 PM UTC+12, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> > for this, line 827 of doc/tagsrch.txt would have had to be:
> > *che* *chec* *check* *checkp* *checkpa* *checkpat* *checkpath*
> > instead of just the first and last ones of these; similarly for _all_
> > other ex-commands, which I believe would have made the doc/tags file
> > much bigger.
>
> Extra tags would only be needed where there's ambiguity. I compiled a
> list; the middle column is what you get if you type the given at the :
> command prompt, and the third column is the topic you get if you ask
> for help for the given:

Thanks, that is very useful. I don't know how you generated this, but I
assume these are the useful ones.

This one is the wrong way around, :ladd stands for :laddexpr.

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