RE: ARG and Dired commands, was: Re: [External] : Re: master 2ed2999: Improve documentation of new Xref options

[Drew Adams]

> > I was talking about the behavior of the ARG argument.
> > And I think I'm correct about that: they accept and
> > handle ARG the same way.
> 
> Then we're really having different discussions. May I ask you to read
> the contents of the thread next time before replying?

May I ask you not to add `dired-do-*' commands that
are inconsistent with the existing ones regarding ARG?

(I do care about vanilla Emacs, even if I can fix such
blunders in Dired+.)

> > But mea culpa.  You found one exception (out of 26
> > such commands in vanilla Emacs): with `emacs -Q',
> > `dired-do-search' does not accept an ARG argument:
> >
> > It_should_  accept an optional ARG, IMO.  Would you
> > like to fix that minor bug?;-)
> 
> Considering that neither dired-do-search nor
> dired-do-query-replace-regexp have an ARG argument,

Bravo!  You found a second one.  So 2 out of 26.

> it doesn't seem logical for the newer counterparts
> to have it.

It does to me.  Why doesn't it to you?

A user will expect the same ARG behavior with a
prefix arg, IMO.  Why wouldn't s?he?  The principle
of least surprise, Occam's razor, and common sense
argue in favor.

Sure, it's possible to have exceptions, IF there's
a good reason (and unfamiliarity with Dired isn't
a good reason).  Do you really have a good reason?

I offered you a simple way out: add your own
command with its own name - just don't prefix it
with `dired-do-'.

> Either way, it's orthogonal to the question at hand. 

It's not orthogonal if you're adding a command
named `dired-do-*' that doesn't accept a prefix-arg
ARG with the usual behavior.

You were able to find 2 exceptions out of 26 commands.
That's NOT a good reason to add a 3rd exception.
Maybe you have a reason that's good, but that one ain't.