Not selecting what emacs ido is suggesting?

Question

In my current working directory ~/WD there is a abc.txt file. Now I want to make another abc.txt under a sub directory ~/WD/NEW/. As I type C-x C-f and the directory ~/WD/NEW/abc.txt, ido is changing the string into ~/WD/abc.txt, which is not what I want to open. As I try to modify the string back, ido automatically "correct" my input into the wrong string again.

Is there any way to solve this issue?

Answer 1

If you're using ido to open a file and you want to "step out" of ido in the middle of completing, you can use C-f. For example:

1. Ctrl+X Ctrl+F (find-file)

   Find file: ~/{ .emacs.d/ | bin/ | some-file.txt | tmp/ ... }
   

2. T Enter (narrow options with ido)

   Find file: ~/tmp/{ file1.txt | file2.txt | subdir/ }
   

3. Ctrl+F ("step out" of ido mode)

   Find file: ~/tmp/
   

Answer 2

Another way of avoiding the completion proposed by ido is to validate your entry using C-j instead of RET

Example, in a case where file foobar already exists and you want to create file foo

1. C-xC-f (find-file)

   Find file: ~/{.emacs.d | ... | foobar} 
   

2. foo (ido narrows options)

   Find file: ~/foo[foobar]
   

3. C-j (ido-select-text)

   This creates file foo instead of accepting ido's foobar completion