Re: cc-mode fontification feels random

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Daniel Colascione <dancol@dancol.org>
> CC: <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>, <joaotavora@gmail.com>, <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2021 12:16:47 -0700
> 
> > I see no reason for copying, nor for making these tools aware of the
> > gap.  At least tree-sitter allows the application to provide a
> > function through which tree-sitter will access the edited text.  It
> > should be simple to write such a function, because on the C level we
> > always know where the gap is.
> 
> So you propose providing a "char get_buffer_char(size_t POS)" function? 
> That *is* copying If you run that over all values of POS, all you've done 
> is make a slow and shitty memcpy.

What do you think tree-sitter does with the fast copy you hand to it?
doesn't it walk it one character at a time?

And if you studied the tree-sitter's internals, and it uses
get_buffer_char as a means of copying text into its own buffer, then
perhaps we could ask tree-sitter developers to avoid the copy and use
the text directly.

> So you want to amortize the call over several characters? Okay. Now you've 
> reinvented buffer-substring.

buffer-substring is not just a copy of a chunk of text, it's much
more.  Even if eventually we need to use a memory copy, that'll run
circles around buffer-substring, and will avoid triggering GC.

> Because any kind of "access" to the buffer that doesn't expose the gap is 
> going to be a copy anyway.

The regexp routines aren't.