Re: A search function that skip some characters

[Stefan Monnier]

> how can I implement a search function that skip some character (like
> these  characters { '.', ',' , '2'}).  So if I search "text" the
> function should not  only find  "text" but also "tex.t", "t.e,xt.2.",
> "te2xt", "te,,,x.2.t" and so on.

I don't think Emacs has any special support for that.

> Is it too difficult?

I guess it depends on the specifics and on your motivation
and expertise.  You can do

    (re-search-forward (mapconcat (lambda (c) (regexp-quote (string c)))
                                  "text" "[.,2]*"))

which may work, but if "text" is long and/or includes occurrences of
",", "." or "2", this approach may fail miserably.  Also if you need
"text" to be a regular expression, then it gets more interesting.

So if that's not good enough, you'll probably have to do the search "by
hand" without using Emacs's builtin search functionality.


        Stefan