Indicate progress while searching for references in xref

* lisp/progmodes/xref.el (xref-backend-references): Add messages to
show the user that something is happening instead of silently freezing
during the frequently long synchronous searches for references.

diff --git a/lisp/progmodes/xref.el b/lisp/progmodes/xref.el
index 90329464f2b4bf49f739e1601c097dfe5f9eadf8..32fe6b612b3971480ed198951566eeb6e3d3e8f6 100644 (file)
--- a/lisp/progmodes/xref.el
+++ b/lisp/progmodes/xref.el
@@ -290,7 +290,11 @@ find a search tool; by default, this uses \"find | grep\" in the
 current project's main and external roots."
   (mapcan
    (lambda (dir)
-     (xref-references-in-directory identifier dir))
+     (message "Searching %s..." dir)
+     (redisplay)
+     (prog1
+         (xref-references-in-directory identifier dir)
+       (message "Searching %s... done" dir)))
    (let ((pr (project-current t)))
      (cons
       (xref--project-root pr)