Get the suffix for the date string

Question

Sometimes I have the date as part of the file name. And then when Emacs autocompletes the file name, it puts the part of the date. In these situations I have to write the rest of the date manually. Here is a solution, so that I can press Super+d and the suffix of today's date is written in the buffer. For example, if point is after "2019", when I press Super+d it becomes "2019-03-09".

(defun make-suffix (word1 word2)
  (cl-labels ((is-prefix (prefix list)
                         (cond ((null prefix) t)
                               ((null list) nil)
                               ((equal (car prefix) (car list))
                                (is-prefix (cdr prefix) (cdr list)))
                               (t nil)))
              (delete-x-elements (x list)
                                 (cond ((= x 0) list)
                                       ((null list) list)
                                       (t (delete-x-elements (- x 1)
                                                             (cdr list)))))
              (make-suffix-rec (l1 l2)
                               (cond ((null l1) l2)
                                     ((is-prefix l1 l2)
                                      (delete-x-elements (length l1) l2))
                                     (t (make-suffix-rec (cdr l1) l2)))))
    (concat (make-suffix-rec (string-to-list word1) (string-to-list word2)))))
(global-set-key (kbd "s-d")
                (lambda ()
                  (interactive)
                  (let ((cw (current-word))
                        (ds (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d")))
                          (insert (make-suffix cw ds)))))

So what do you think? Is it a good solution? Is it the right way to use elisp and Emacs?

Answer 1

I'm concerned that make-suffix is sufficiently general that we'll have name collisions with other packages - or even new Emacs versions. Perhaps prefix with some tag (I tend to begin names with my initials to disambiguate my own functions, for example; that would give you something like an/make-suffix).

Instead of binding a lambda to the keystroke, prefer to give it a name. That makes it easier to bind to other keys (perhaps interactively) and for Control+h k to give the best output.

Talking of which, let's have some docstrings, please!

Finally, since the function will work only on writable buffers, we should have (interactive "*") to avoid wasting effort when used in a read-only context.