Navigation in C++ file

Is it possible to navigate conveniently forward (and backward) between successive curly braces { . The functions sp- forward-sexp and sp-next-sexp don't seem suitable. For example, if the cursor is before the first opening brace it jumps to after the last closing brace.

int 
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  Kinetic::start(argc,argv); 

  if( argc > 1 )
  { 
    for( int i=1; i<argc; i++ )
    {
      line=argv[i];
      if( line=="noplot" || line=="nopause" || line=="abortOnEnd" ) continue;
      else
      {
     const char * dot = strrchr((const char*) line, '.');
      }
    }
  }
}

[Fuco1]

Good question, and the answer is no. I have this noted down in my todo-file, that is: "provide a way to navigate with just specific pair". Something akin to the symbol/pair/tag prefix arguments, but it would probably be some macro to generate functions users would bind to a key.

The best aproximation now is sp-down-sexp but that would also consider the () pairs, which might be rather annoying.

If you aren't afraid of a bit of a programing, you can define your own functions by using dynamic scoping in elisp:

(defun my-curly-sp-down-sexp (&optional arg)
  (interactive "P")
  (let ((sp-pair-list '(("{" . "}"))))
    (sp-down-sexp arg)))

This pattern can be used to "augument" all the other similar functions to work just on curly brackets.

You can also check sp-html-next-tag funciton in smartparens-html.el and change the let binding to the one above. That will take you from {foo |bar} {baz qux} -> {foo bar} {|baz qux} that is, inside the next bracket

The original sp-down-exp moves into the () expression and then further forward navigation is cumbersome.

The function you suggested my-curly-sp-down-sexp works fine and I will modify the other functions to navigate the file.

I am not sure about how to implement your other suggestion on changing the let binding on sp-html-next-tag but I will look into the documentation some more. Thanks for your help.

[Fuco1]

@Rchella I've added some functions to make these restrictions as easy as possible

sp-restrict-to-pairs
sp-restrict-to-object
sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive
sp-restrict-to-object-interactive

Check the documentation strings, if something isn't clear, please let me know so I'll rewrite the docs better.

I tried to implement some navigation functions using the newly defined functions.

(global-set-key (kbd "M-{") (sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive "{" 'sp-down-sexp))
(global-set-key (kbd "M-}") (sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive "{" 'sp-up-sexp))

seem to work as expected. But

(global-set-key (kbd "M->") (sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive "{" 'sp-forward-sexp))
(global-set-key (kbd "M-<") (sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive "{" 'sp-backward-sexp))

seem to work OK when adjacent to one of the {, but from inside a sexp the restriction to { does not seem to be observed. Perhaps I did not set them up correctly.

[Fuco1]

What you mean "from inside a sexp"? Can you give an example?

Referring back to this line in the example file I first posted

  Kinetic::start(argc,argv);

if the cursor is before K, then the first M-> (defined as indicated above) moves the cursor to the end of the word Kinetic and the next M-> places the cursor before the (. I would expect M-> to go to the following {.

[Fuco1]

I see. You will need to compose it with "object restrictor", because foo is technically a "sexp" but without any delimiter (I use terminology symbol)

(define-key c++-mode-map (kbd "M->") (sp-restrict-to-object-interactive
                                      'sp-prefix-pair-object
                                      (sp-restrict-to-pairs-interactive "{" 'sp-forward-sexp)))

I treat them in a special way because it allows greater flexibility.

[Fuco1]

I've written some documentation here: https://github.com/Fuco1/smartparens/wiki/Working-with-expressions#wiki-decorators

OK, this works fine now. Thanks for the quick response and the detailed documentation of how to use the new functions.