Extended command by regexp?

Question

In Emacs - is there a way I can search an extended command by regex right in the minibuffer? That is - I want to filter commands by regexp and then choose the one I need using IDO or Icicles.

Answer 1

I've always suspected that Icicles provdies that.

M-x <command-regexp> [PageUp/PageDown]

to browse the commands mathching regexp, and

M-x <command-regexp> [Shift-Tab]

to see the list of commands matching regexp. More here.

Answer 2

When using ido you can turn on regexp matching by pressing C-t. I use smex and ido together and it works beautifully.

Answer 3

While they are not regexps, the default completion mechanism accepts a * to stand for "anything", so you can do M-x foo*bar ? and it will list all the commands whose name looks like "...foo...bar...".