Previous/next occur result, independently from compilation errors

Question

After running M-x occur, the commands next-error and previous-error let me navigate between hits.

I would like to be able to M-x compile my program and then keep browsing through the same *Occur* results. But if I compile then next-error and previous-error navigate the compilation errors, which makes perfect sense.

I don't want to run M-x occur again because I'd lose my place. What I want is to navigate occur results independently of compilation results.

How can I define next-occur and previous-occur commands that do this? (Note that this is not occur-next and occur-prev, which operate in the *Occur* buffer. I want to bind these to keys in the buffer that's being searched.)

Bonus: I'd prefer grep to be classified like occur, so I can also navigate grep results independently from compilation errors.

Answer 1

Looking at the source of occur-mode, I found this:

  (setq next-error-function 'occur-next-error))

This suggests occur-next-error is the function next-error calls in a "occured" buffer. And indeed, it seems that calling occur-next-error (with a negative arg to go backward) does work even after M-x compile. I have not tested this extensively, though.

So it would seem you just need to define a occur-prev-error command calling occur-next-error with arg -1 and use it along with occur-next-error.