4.1 Starting a session ¶

Command: p-search ¶

This command creates a new p-search session and displays its buffer. The default session that is created is specified by the variable p-search-default-command-behavior.

If called with a prefix argument C-u, it will create an empty session regardless of how p-search-default-command-behavior is defined.

User Option: p-search-default-command-behavior ¶

This variable’s value determines the default behavior when running p-search (i.e. which candidate generators should the session be initialized with). It can take the following values:

t

Use the default behavior. If the current default-directory is a project (see Projects in GNU Emacs manual), initialize the session with a filesystem candidate generator on the project’s root. Otherwise initialize the session in the current default-directory. The default behavior is subject to change.

nil

Always initialize the session empty with no candidate generators.

a cons cell, ‘(candidate-generator . arguments)’

Initialize the session with the candidate generator (See Creating Candidate Generators), provided with arguments. E.g. (cons p-search-candidate-generator-filesystem '((base-directory . "~/dev/emacs")))

a preset plist

If a preset plist is provided, initialize the session with the provided preset. Presets are a way of defining p-search sessions with data, The Preset Data Structure and Programatically Creating Sessions.

a function

Call the provided function to obtain the session’s initial candidate generator. The function should take no arguments and return either a cons cell or preset plist as described above.

You can utilize dir-local variables to have different setups in different directories. The following is an example of a dir-local entry to setup this variable using a preset plist.

((p-search-mode .
  ((p-search-default-command-behavior .
    (:candidate-generator p-search-candidate-generator-filesystem
     :args ((base-directory .
              (lambda ()
                (expand-file-name
                  (project-root (project-current)))))))))))