A separate function to return the value of `restart_edit`

[zeertzjq]

Is your feature request about something that is currently impossible or hard to do? Please describe the problem.

Currently mode(1) only includes restart_edit if in Normal mode (niI, niR, niV), but the value of restart_edit may also be useful when not in Normal mode (e.g to determine which mode <Esc> goes to in Visual mode, or to simulate showmode messages like -- (insert) VISUAL -- in statusline).

Appending restart_edit to every mode where restart_edit can be non-empty in the return value of mode(1) may make the return value of mode(1) harder to parse, make the addition of new modes in the future more difficult, and make the documentation of mode() very long.

Describe the solution you'd like

Instead, there can be a separate function to return the value of restart_edit. IDK how it should be named though.

[zeertzjq]

Maybe only return restart_edit when it is one of I, R, V, otherwise return a empty string.

[zeertzjq]

Maybe only return restart_edit when it is one of I, R, V, otherwise return a empty string.

Oh, it seems restart_edit can have some other values if startinsert is called from a script. Maybe returning restart_edit as-is if it is not NUL is better then?

[zeertzjq]

Maybe only return restart_edit when it is one of I, R, V, otherwise return a empty string.

Oh, it seems restart_edit can have some other values if startinsert is called from a script. Maybe returning restart_edit as-is if it is not NUL is better then?

Oh, I guess it will be hard to write documentation for values other than I, R, V.

[zeertzjq]

With #8999 this can be worked around using two autocommands:

:autocmd ModeChanged *:ni[IRV] let g:restart_edit = v:event.new_mode[2]
:autocmd InsertEnter * let g:restart_edit = ''

So I think there is no need to add an ambiguous function. Closing.

[zeertzjq]

Oh, That workaround doesn't work if :stopinsert is used to set restart_edit = 0.

[brammool]

We have mode() to get the main mode that Vim is in, and we can't change it much without breaking existing plugins.
We also have state(), which is used mainly to postpone work that isn't safe to do right now (e.g. in a channel callback).
Just returning the value of restart_edit is a technical look at it. We might find more state that matters for a plugin.
To be more flexible for the future, and to avoid adding even more functions later, we could at a function that returns a dictionary with various state values. We could for example have a flag whether we are inside a timer callback.
Not sure what to call it, since mode() and state() are already in use.

[zeertzjq]

This is not very useful, so I'll close this.