i always have everyting under a top level, so taht files are trees not forests and org can work treeishly even at toplevel. but to not use the mark, typically you supply point-min and point-max to some function. major changes to o-s-r migth not be needed, merely that.
On 10/30/20, Gustavo Barros <gusbrs.2...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi All, > > `org-sort-entries' provides no easy way to sort by top-level when the > first entry is at the beginning of buffer. This is true for both > interactive and non-interactive uses of the function, but a little more > inconvenient in the latter case. > > Indeed, `org-sort-entries', when deciding what to sort, first tests for > `org-region-active-p', then `org-at-heading-p' (or if after a heading), > failing those tests, it falls back to top-level sorting. However, if > the first heading is at the beginning of buffer and we want to sort by > top-level, we'll never get to the fall back case, because > `org-at-heading-p' will return non-nil, and the children of the first > entry will be sorted instead. > > Not an ECM, just an use case with the situation at hand. Consider a > buffer with contents: > > #+begin_src org > ,* B Foo > ,** B Baz > ,** A Foo > ,* A Bar > #+end_src > > How to sort by top-level? > > The currently existing alternative is to `mark-whole-buffer', and let > `org-sort-entries' sort by region. While this is reasonable in the > interactive case, it is less so if `org-sort-entries' is being called in > code. Using `mark-whole-buffer' in your code will grant you a nice > compiler warning and pretending you don't use it by doing the same thing > yourself is explicitly advised against in its docstring: "it is usually > a mistake for a Lisp function to use any subroutine that uses or sets > the mark". Behind the scenes, Org is using `use-region-p', which means > the region must not only exist but transient-mark-mode must be on and > the mark must be active. It can be made to work, of course, but it is > clearly less than ideal. Either way, currently the only way to ensure > that sorting is done by top-level when you don't know whether there is > something before the first heading (including possible narrowing) is to > rely on the region case. > > What to do with it is somewhat tricky, though. My first thought was to > test if we are actually looking at a heading regexp, and sort on the > heading's level in this case. But, on second thought, I believe this is > not a good idea, because it will conflict with current and expected > behavior for speed-keys, in particular. Perhaps test if point is at > beginning of buffer, and handle this case specially? > > > Best regards, > Gustavo. > > -- The Kafka Pandemic Please learn what misopathy is. https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-some-diseases-are-wronged.html