[RFC] the rectangle functions

Since I've been using whitespace.el, I've noticed that most of the rectangle functions are very intrusive: they put whitespaces in unexpected places. The reasons are: 1/ move-to-column doesn't make any difference between converting a tab into space and adding spaces at the end of a line. This is now fixed. 2/ operate-on-rectangle does too much blind work, notably messing with the end of the line even for functions like string-rectangle which shouldn't be concerned. So I've rewritten rect.el to correct these problems. The rectangle functions now avoid inserting spaces in unwanted places, unless a prefix is given for some of them, in which case the old behavior is (sort of) used. Here are examples of the differences, if anybody wants to comment the changes I propose. There's notably something on which I'm not completely decided yet: for the functions with a prefix, we could push even farther the choice: - don't add unnecessary blanks at all (no prefix) - add blanks on non empty lines only - add blanks blindly (current prefix meaning) Given a rectangle on the following lines, corners are noted with `*' (white spaces are converted to underscores): 123*45 1234 123 12 12345678*90 delete-rectangle: ================ old one / new one with a prefix: ------------------------------- 123 123 123 12_ ___ 12390 new one without prefix: ---------------------- 123 123 123 12 12390 open-rectangle: ============== old one: ------- 123_____45 123_____4 123_____ 12_____ _____ 123_____4567890 new one with a prefix: --------------------- 123_____45 123_____4 123_____ 12______ ________ 123_____4567890 new one without prefix: ---------------------- 123_____45 123_____4 123 12 123_____4567890 string-rectangle ("***"): ======================== old one: ------- 123***45_____ 123***4_ 123***_____ 12 ***_____ ***_____ 123***4567890 new one: ------- 123***45 123***4 123*** 12 *** *** 123***4567890 clear-rectangle: =============== old one / new one with a prefix: ------------------------------- 123_____ 123_____ 123_____ 12______ ________ 123_____90 new one without prefix: ------------------------ 123 123 123 12 123_____90 -- / / _ _ Didier Verna http://www.inf.enst.fr/~verna/ - / / - / / /_/ / ENST, INFRES C201.1 mailto:verna＠inf.enst.fr /_/ / /_/ / /__ / 46 rue Barrault Tel. +33 (1) 45 81 73 46 75013 Paris, France Fax. +33 (1) 45 81 31 19