`C-s` error: Wrong type argument: commandp, swiper-isearch

[paulie4]

I just installed ivy (Version: 20250417.1209, Commit: 2529a23) on Emacs 30.1 in Windows, and when I activated ivy-mode, C-s was still doing the regular isearch-forward. It looks like ivy is activated, since C-x b is tied to ivy-switch-buffer. I then tried running (keymap-global-set "C-s" #'swiper-isearch) as per the Ivy-based interface to standard commands doc, but when I try to use C-s, I get this error in my *Messages*:

Wrong type argument: commandp, swiper-isearch

[basil-conto]

when I activated ivy-mode, C-s was still doing the regular isearch-forward

That's normal - the main purpose of ivy-mode is to hook into the default Emacs completion machinery, not to remap default key bindings to Ivy-based commands (with the exception of ivy-switch-buffer). It is counsel-mode from the counsel package that remaps several default key bindings.

Also, swiper-isearch is provided in swiper.el, not ivy.el.
Could it be that you have installed only the ivy package, and not the swiper package?
What is the result of typing C-h f swiper-isearch RET?

Thanks.

[paulie4]

Sure enough, C-h f swiper-isearch shows zero results. swiper- shows these results:

3    Describe function: swiper-
ivy-recompute-index-swiper-backward
ivy-recompute-index-swiper-async-backward
ivy-recompute-index-swiper-async

The only "Installation" I saw in https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper/blob/master/README.md was for installing ivy, so I didn't realize I had to install something separately for swiper... I just tried to install it, and I got an error:

Packages to install: 1 (swiper-20250329.1401).  Proceed? (y or n) y
Operation [ Install 1 ] started
forward-sexp: Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 8013, 8914

Thanks in advance for your help!

[basil-conto]

The only "Installation" I saw in https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper/blob/master/README.md was for installing ivy, so I didn't realize I had to install something separately for swiper...

Indeed, it could definitely be made more explicit; patches welcome.

The implication is at the top of the README:

This repository contains:
Ivy, a generic completion mechanism for Emacs.
Counsel, a collection of Ivy-enhanced versions of common Emacs commands.
Swiper, an Ivy-enhanced alternative to Isearch.

followed by a separate section for each package, with the Installation notes being an Ivy subsection.

I just tried to install it, and I got an error:

Packages to install: 1 (swiper-20250329.1401).  Proceed? (y or n) y
Operation [ Install 1 ] started
forward-sexp: Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 8013, 8914

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sorry, this is not enough information for me to be of much help.

What is your M-x emacs-version RET? What steps exactly (keys/commands) do you take to install swiper? Are you using the built-in package manager via M-x package-install RET? If so, what is your C-h v package-archives RET?

By the way, swiper-20250329.1401 looks like a version that may be coming from MELPA. If you prefer, you can install Swiper from the default GNU ELPA as well / instead.

GNU ELPA (the default in package-archives) currently has version 0.15.1: https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/swiper.html

That's currently the same version as the bleeding-edge version 0.15.1.0.20250329.151337 on GNU-devel ELPA: https://elpa.gnu.org/devel/swiper.html

[basil-conto]

Have you tried M-x toggle-debug-on-error RET before triggering the error? The error backtrace could be useful.

[basil-conto]

I'm unable to reproduce any kind of installation error in Emacs versions 31.0.50 (of 2025-04-03), 30.1, 29.4, 28.2, 27.2, and 26.3. Here's what I'm trying (on Debian GNU/Linux):

1. cd "$(mktemp -d)"
2. HOME="${PWD}" XDG_CONFIG_HOME="${PWD}" emacs
3. M-: (setq package-archives '(("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))) RET
4. M-x list-packages RET and wait for "Package refresh done"
5. C-r SPC swiper SPC RET i x y
6. C-h e

*Messages* buffer excerpt

Packages to install: 1 (swiper-20250329.1401).  Proceed? (y or n) y
Operation [ Install 1 ] started
(New file)
Saving file /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs...
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs
Contacting host: melpa.org:443 [2 times]
Parsing tar file...done
Extracting...done
  INFO     Scraping 5 files for loaddefs...done
  GEN      ivy-autoloads.el
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209...
Compiling /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/colir.el...done
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/colir.elc
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209... [2 times]
Compiling /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy-faces.el...done
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy-faces.elc
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209...
Compiling /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy-overlay.el...done
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy-overlay.elc
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209... [2 times]
Compiling /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy.el...done
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209/ivy.elc
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/ivy-20250417.1209...
Done (Total of 4 files compiled, 2 skipped)
Contacting host: melpa.org:443
Parsing tar file...done
Extracting...done
  INFO     Scraping 2 files for loaddefs...done
  GEN      swiper-autoloads.el
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/swiper-20250329.1401... [3 times]
Compiling /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/swiper-20250329.1401/swiper.el...done
Wrote /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/swiper-20250329.1401/swiper.elc
Checking /tmp/tmp.qpCyYilBix/.emacs.d/elpa/swiper-20250329.1401...
Done (Total of 1 file compiled, 2 skipped)
Package ‘swiper’ installed.
Operation [ Install 1 ] finished

M-x report-emacs-bug excerpt

In GNU Emacs 30.1 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, cairo
 version 1.18.2, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2025-02-24 built on tais
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12101016
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux trixie/sid

Configured using:
 'configure --prefix=/home/blc/.local --program-suffix=-30.1-lucid
 --with-file-notification --with-x-toolkit=lucid --with-x'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES NATIVE_COMP
NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP X11 XAW3D XDBE XIM XINPUT2 XPM
LUCID ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_IE.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Messages

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  minibuffer-regexp-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug ivy swiper-autoloads ivy-faces colir
info ivy-autoloads easy-mmode loaddefs-gen lisp-mnt radix-tree tar-mode
arc-mode archive-mode cus-edit pp cus-start cus-load wid-edit misearch
multi-isearch mm-archive message sendmail yank-media dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived gnus-util time-date
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-utils
mule-util gnutls network-stream url-cache url-http url-auth mail-parse
rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util ietf-drums mail-prsvr url-gw nsm puny
compile text-property-search comint ansi-osc ansi-color ring comp-run
comp-common rx epg rfc6068 epg-config display-line-numbers finder-inf
package browse-url url url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods
url-history url-cookie generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util mailcap
url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs icons
password-cache json subr-x map byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile
url-vars cl-loaddefs cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren
electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel
term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd touch-screen tool-bar dnd fontset
image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch
easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax
font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic
indonesian philippine cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese
tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek
romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese
composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook
jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button loaddefs
theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties
overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap
hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind inotify lcms2
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo x-toolkit
xinput2 x multi-tty move-toolbar make-network-process native-compile
emacs)

[paulie4]

I didn't know about toggle-debug-on-error. Thanks! I don't know what was going on, since I was also only doing i x y in the package list buffer to install only the swiper package, but the debug info looked like it was trying to upgrade all sorts of unrelated packages. Instead of that, I hit RET to load up the help info on the package, and then I moved the cursor to the Install button and hit RET. That succeeded.

Since the Ivy section has an Installation section, can you just add a similar section to the Counsel and Swiper sections as well, so if someone does a Ctrl+f to search for the install instructions, they'll see the three separate package install instructions, e.g.

### Installation

Install the `swiper` package from GNU ELPA or MELPA.

[basil-conto]

Since the Ivy section has an Installation section, can you just add a similar section to the Counsel and Swiper sections as well, so if someone does a Ctrl+f to search for the install instructions, they'll see the three separate package install instructions, e.g.

### Installation

Install the `swiper` package from GNU ELPA or MELPA.

Now done in commit 2257a9d.
Feel free to let me know if anything is still amiss, and thanks again.