Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!LF-SERVER-2.BBN.COM!jr
From: jr@LF-SERVER-2.BBN.COM (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: fixing a file
Message-ID: <8801112109.AA02920@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 88 20:49:58 GMT
References: <21226@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jr@ALEXANDER.BBN.COM
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 45

>> In article <890@uop.edu>, clmebri@uop (Brian Joseph Maiorella) writes:
>> >
>> > I posted an article asking for help because emacs was "chopping off lines.
>> >
>> > I have a rather large file that should have been created in auto-fill-mode
>> > Every line in this file is cut as shown below:
>> >    This is an example of a line in the middle of a para/
>> >    graph.

If you mean a literal slash character in the file, then something like
a query-replace-regexp of "\/^J   " with "" ought to do it.  If there
is no extra character at the broken word aside from the newline and
whitespace, you could still do it qith query-replace, but it'd be more
tedious (would visit every line).

 >> I have a related query.  When typing in auto-fill-mode, words that run
>> beyond the right edge of the window are wrapped around AFTER you've finished
>> typing the entire word.  Is there any way to have them wrap down to the next
>> line as soon as you type the (right-edge + 1)'th character?  I.e., is there
>> any way, when typing Brian's example, to avoid seeing the "para/
>> graph"
>> phenomenon even temporarily, but instead having "parag" wrapped around as
>> soon as you type the "g"?

There's a tradeoff.  SHould emacs check for wrapping as each character
is typed, or only when white space is typed.  Emacs does the latter.
Since the whitespace can be typed anywhere, wrapping of 2X too long
lines still works.  If you check on every character but only do an
equal comparison on the fill column, you have the problem when you
glue together a too-long line.  Obviously checking for wrapping on
each character means you have to work more on each character.

What I do is type a space when I want a long line to get broken, then
immediately erase it.  Also, if it is convenient, meta-Q will just do
it for you anytime (fixing the whole paragraph while it's at it).
Also, I tend to have my window a whole lot wider (80) than my fill
column (70).  Finally, when I am typing into the front or middle of a
long line, I tend to break it first (control-O) so that the portion to
the right of the cursor doesn't have to move over each character, and
into the wrapped line, as I type; an automatic filler would have to
check the entire line every time to solve this case - can be done, but
it's a lot more work.

/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbn.uucp