How to disable “/” 's default behavior on the F interactive mode?

Question

I use interactive mode with Ivy and Dired for interactively creating new files, like so:

(evil-local-set-key 'normal (kbd "t") (lambda (file)
                                      (interactive "Ftouch ")
                                      (let ((target_exists (file-directory-p file))
                                            (target_dir (file-name-directory file)))
                                        (unless target_exists
                                          (make-directory target_dir t))
                                        (with-temp-buffer
                                          (append-to-file (point-min)
                                                        (point-max)
                                                        file))
                                        (revert-buffer)
                                        (dired target_dir))

It works fine. The problem is that the / key always automatically completes what I am currently hovering in the completion list. Please take a look at the following GIF:

https://gfycat.com/parallelscratchyhuman

When I type . A M /, interactive mode will automatically complete it to ".AMD/", which is not my intention.

What I want to do is get rid of this "completion" behavior of / to not disturb what I am typing, i.e. pressing / only outputs the literal / character and nothing else.

Answer 1

After reading the documentation and the source code of ivy, I think there is no way to disable the effect of / elegantly. I may be wrong, those who are interested in the question can see the function ivy--update-minibuffer which calls ivy--magic-file-slash to autocomplete directory by / if only one directory matched the input string.

Workaround

Simply disable the function which triggers the directory completion, i.e ivy--magic-file-slash. (Not a great idea, because it is a "private" function of ivy.)

First, define an advice function doing nothing.

(defun disable-function (oldfun &rest args))

Then, replace your interactive snippet by this one:

(interactive
     (let ((file))
       (advice-add #'ivy--magic-file-slash :around #'disable-function)
       (setq file (read-file-name "touch ")) 
       (advice-remove #'ivy--magic-file-slash #'disable-function)
       (list file)))

The code above disables the effect of / before prompting for a filename (exactly as (interactive "Ftouch ") do) and then enable it again / in case you need it in another context.

You will need to press C-j manually to complete existing directories. For instance in your example, if you want to touch the file .AMD/Dir1/file.txt, you will need to press C-j after that .AMD is selected as a candidate, so that the completion of its subdirectories will be possible.

Old (wrong) answer:

I think you are looking for the keybinding C-M-j (ivy-immediate-done, see the documentation).

Exits with the current input instead of the current candidate (like other commands).