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Word selection is too coarse, doesn't stop at non-letter characters

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
cli

Research direction

Start in the PSReadLine PowerShell REPL handling for CTRL+LEFT/RIGHT and CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT/RIGHT word movement. Reproduce the provided Out-File '.\Temp\Test.csv' example and verify that navigation and selection stop at each non-letter boundary shown in the expected behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Needs-Triage :mag:

Currently, editing and selecting text, like expressions or file paths, in the PowerShell REPL is quite cumbersome because only letters (Regex \w character group) are considered word boundaries.

I would expect the cursor to stop at the next non-letter (Regex \W character group) character when navigating using CTRL + LEFT/RIGHT ARROW.

Prerequisites
  • Write a descriptive title.
  • Make sure you are able to repro it on the latest released version
  • Search the existing issues, especially the pinned issues.
Screenshot

Word selection quite coarse

Environment data
PS Version: 7.5.4
PS HostName: ConsoleHost
PSReadLine Version: 2.3.6
PSReadLine EditMode: Windows
OS: 10.0.19041.4406 (WinBuild.160101.0800)
BufferWidth: 120
BufferHeight: 9001
Steps to reproduce
  1. Enter a text like the one from the screenshot into a PowerShell window:
    Out-File '.\Temp\Test.csv'
  2. Move the cursor using CTRL + LEFT/RIGHT ARROW keys
Expected behavior

Pressing CTRL + SHIFT + LEFT/RIGHT ARROW keys, I'd expect text selection to switch from Temp... to \Temp..., then .\Temp..., '.\Temp..., File '.\Temp... etc.

Actual behavior

Pressing CTRL + SHIFT + LEFT/RIGHT ARROW keys, text selection switches from Temp... to File '.\Temp... etc.

Dominant language
C#
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