Re: understanding the function outline-level

[Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com>]

Michael Brand <michael.ch.brand@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi all
>
> I am on the way of tracking down an (Org?) buglet and now
> outline-level tries to strike me with my lack of experience with
> "Match Data" of Emacs search and I would like to ask for some help to
> understand.
>
> M-: (outline-level) returns a value that I don't understand yet. The
> number does not correspond to the amount of stars and is independent
> of at the beginning of which line the point was before. And when I
> look at the implementation of outline-level I am missing a function
> that initializes the "Match Data". Where is that last search or match
> operation?

(A quick hint. May not be complete though)

The typical call sequence seems to be:

1. Move the cursor to a headline.
2. Call outline-level.

It is (1) which presumably does a regexp search and ends up in the
headline.

So outline-level cannot be called in and of itself. It always need to be
preceded by some other call which positions the cursor in a headline in
the first place.

Cursory look suggests that there are multiple ways by which (1) could be
achieved - mostly they seem to be outline tree traversal functions.

Summary: Look at outline-level in source code. Jump a few lines above
and watch out for any sort of traversal functions.

,----[ C-h f outline-level RET ]
| outline-level is a compiled Lisp function in `outline.el'.
| 
| (outline-level)
| 
| Return the depth to which a statement is nested in the outline.
| Point must be at the beginning of a header line.
| This is actually either the level specified in `outline-heading-alist'
| or else the number of characters matched by `outline-regexp'.
| 
| [back]
`----



>
> Michael
>
>

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