SkyBison fails to call :nohlsearch

[alpha123]

Steps to reproduce:

• Install SkyBison (duh).

• Add

  nnoremap : :<C-u>call SkyBison("")<CR>

  to your vimrc.

• Reload your vimrc.
• Use / to search for something.
• Type :nohl (or :nohlsearch).

For some reason, it fails to un-highlight the search. :nohl works just fine from ex mode, so I assume SkyBison fails to actually call the command somehow.

[jamessan]

Isn't this just the fact that :nohl has no effect when called in a function? Although, adding

if a:cmdline =~# '^[: ]*noh\%[lsearch]'
    let v:hlsearch = 0
endif

to s:RunCommandAndQuit doesn't help either. I did notice something else while looking at this. I'll file an issue for that.

[paradigm]

I was not able to come up with any way to effectively do :nohl in a function. As :help :nohl points out, autocmds are also not a viable solution. Trying to do it indirectly with something like v:hlsearch doesn't work either, as jamessan pointed out. However, SkyBison only really runs into this at the very end of what it does. We can leverage feedkeys() to run something after SkyBison's function ends. For example, change line 31 (execute a:cmdline) in the current version to:

call feedkeys(":") . a:cmdline . "\<cr>", "n")

The "n" flag is necessary for situations such as alpha123's so it does not call SkyBison again.

I've been bitten in the past by using feedkeys() without fully thinking things through, so I don't want to jump to doing this without some thought and experimentation. However, a quick test with the instructions above seems to work. Some potential issues with this:

• Can anyone think of a way that the "n" flag would keep SkyBison from using some mapping the user would want? I tried stuff like calling :normal with stuff I have mapped in a feedkeys with and without "n" but it seems to act the same.
• Can anyone think possible user input which would result in an infinite loop, even with the "n" flag?

While I think this is a terrible idea, another avenue which might work is to make SkyBison a :command instead of a function under-the-hood. A really long, ugly command with lots of pipes that heavily abuses :execute. I'd like to exhaust options like feedkeys() before pursuing this, but it may be worth mentioning and thinking about.