How can I jump to a definition without being queried in Emacs?

Question

I have a problem when using Etags in Emacs. Everytime I tap \M+. to jump to a difinition point, a query is always popping up, like:

Find tag (default function_name):

And I have to tap 'Enter' to make sure of it.

But in most cases, I find I can choose the default one. So is there any method with which I can surpress this message? I found the reason is because: (defun find-tag (tagname &optional next-p regexp-p) (interactive (find-tag-interactive "Find tag: ")) ... )

Why do I have to choose a tag? Why can not the default one just be the word under the point? Can I just remove this line? (interactive), or is there a good solution?

Answer 1

Going shortly through a couple of defuns in the etags sources via Emacs's awesome C-h f, one can find that the default tag to search is determined via a function named find-tag-default.

This means you could just define the following function:

(defun find-tag-under-point ()
  (interactive)
  (find-tag (find-tag-default)))

Then you can bind this to whatever key you want via define-key or global-set-key or local-set-key.

(The interactive form is always necessary if you want a function to be a "command" which can be called with M-x or bound to a key.)

Answer 2

You can write your own functionality over the find-tag (or any interactive function likewise)

(defun find-tag-under-point (&optional arg)
  (interactive "P")
  (cond ((eq arg 9)
     (let ((current-prefix-arg nil))
       (call-interactively 'find-tag)))
    (arg
     (call-interactively 'find-tag))
    (t
     (find-tag (find-tag-default)))))

(global-set-key (kbd "M-.") 'find-tag-under-point)

Then hotkey C-9M-. calls find-tag (old function) as usual, but the behaviour of find-tag-under-point (new-function) by default is what you want.