Why am I not getting completions from grouped backends?

[mtwomey]

Output of the command M-x company-diag

Emacs 27.2 (x86_64-apple-darwin19.6.0) of 2021-06-21 on MacBook-Pro.local
Company 0.9.13

company-backends: (company-capf
 (:separate company-dabbrev company-yasnippet company-ispell))

Used backend: (:separate company-dabbrev company-yasnippet company-ispell)

Major mode: org-mode
Prefix: "titl"
Completions:
  "title"
  #("titlark" 0 7 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("title" 0 5 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titleboard" 0 10 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titled" 0 6 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titledom" 0 8 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titleholder" 0 11 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titleless" 0 9 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titleproof" 0 10 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titler" 0 6 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titleship" 0 9 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titlike" 0 7 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titling" 0 7 (company-backend company-ispell))
  #("titlist" 0 7 (company-backend company-ispell))

Describe the issue

I'm having trouble getting yasnippet completions, when there are other completions also happening. I am unsure if I'm just doing something wrong with my setup or if there is a problem here.

In this example I have a snippet with the key %org-title-general. If I type %org-titl I'll get completions from company-ispell, nothing from yasnippet. On the other hand if I call company-yasnippet at the same point, I do get the completions.

Steps to reproduce

1. Set backend as shows in the debug above
2. Create a yasnippet as described
3. Try the completion from simply typing %org-titl
4. Try the completion by calling company-yasnippet directly at point

Expected behavior

Get the completions from both.

Screenshots

Completion that comes up automatically just from typing:

Completion from calling company-yasnippet:

[dgutov]

Hi!

This is basically the same as #792.

Unfortunately, we don't support grouping of entirely arbitrary backends, they need to be compatible in what prefix returns.

The default configuration is done with that aspect in mind, where company-dabbrev-code is grouped with company-etags and company-dabbrev stands to the side. But the latter can be combined with company-ispell. company-yasnippet works better when combined with any of the former group (they determine the prefix bounds based on "symbol" syntax).

In general this has worked okay because you usually want some backends in text buffers, and others in programming buffers, but it seems company-yasnippet can be attractive in both.

There is a rough idea of how to fix this in the linked issue. I don't have the time for this now, so someone is welcome to beat me to it.

[mtwomey]

Ok, understand. Thanks for the detail - I appreciate it.

[dgutov]

FWIW, if those are your personal snippets, using the < as the initial character should work better than %.

Now that #1268 has been fixed, that is.