Programming in Emacs Lisp

An Introduction

Edition 1.05, 21 October 1997

by Robert J. Chassell

Return to: Overview of Programming in Emacs Lisp

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• Preface
  • For Whom This is Written
  • Lisp History
  • A Note for Novices
  • Thank You
• List Processing
  • Lisp Lists
    • Lisp Atoms
    • Whitespace in Lists
    • GNU Emacs Helps You Type Lists
  • Run a Program
  • Generate an Error Message
  • Symbol Names and Function Definitions
  • The Lisp Interpreter
    • Byte Compiling
  • Evaluation
    • Evaluating Inner Lists
  • Variables
    • Error Message for a Symbol Without a Value
  • Arguments
    • Arguments' Data Types
    • An Argument as the Value of a Variable or List
    • Variable Number of Arguments
    • Using the Wrong Type Object as an Argument
    • The message Function
  • Setting the Value of a Variable
    • Using set
    • Using setq
    • Counting
  • Summary
  • Exercises
• Practicing Evaluation
  • Buffer Names
  • Getting Buffers
  • Switching Buffers
  • Buffer Size and the Location of Point
  • Exercise
• How To Write Function Definitions
  • The defun Special Form
  • Install a Function Definition
    • Change a Function Definition
  • Make a Function Interactive
    • An Interactive multiply-by-seven.
  • Different Options for interactive
  • Install Code Permanently
  • let
    • The Parts of a let Expression
    • Sample let Expression
    • Uninitialized Variables in a let Statement
  • The if Special Form
    • The type-of-animal Function in Detail
  • If--then--else Expressions
  • Truth and Falsehood in Lisp
  • save-excursion
    • Template for a save-excursion Expression
  • Review
  • Exercises
• A Few Buffer--Related Functions
  • Finding More Information
  • A Simplified beginning-of-buffer Definition
  • The Definition of mark-whole-buffer
    • Body of mark-whole-buffer
  • The Definition of append-to-buffer
    • The append-to-buffer Interactive Expression
    • The Body of append-to-buffer
    • save-excursion in append-to-buffer
  • Review
  • Exercises
• A Few More Complex Functions
  • The Definition of copy-to-buffer
  • The Definition of insert-buffer
    • The Interactive Expression in insert-buffer
      • A Read-only Buffer
      • `b' in an Interactive Expression
    • The Body of the insert-buffer Function
    • insert-buffer With an if Instead of an or
    • The or in the Body
    • The let Expression in insert-buffer
  • Complete Definition of beginning-of-buffer
    • Optional Arguments
    • beginning-of-buffer with an Argument
      • What happens in a large buffer
      • What happens in a small buffer
    • The Complete beginning-of-buffer
  • Review
  • &optional Argument Exercise
• Narrowing and Widening
  • The save-restriction Special Form
  • what-line
  • Exercise with Narrowing
• car, cdr, cons: Fundamental Functions
  • car and cdr
  • cons
    • Find the Length of a List: length
  • nthcdr
  • setcar
  • setcdr
  • Exercise
• Cutting and Storing Text
  • zap-to-char
    • The interactive Expression
    • The Body of zap-to-char
    • The search-forward Function
    • The progn Function
    • Summing up zap-to-char
    • The Version 18 Implementation
      • The body of the progn expression
  • kill-region
  • delete-region: A Digression into C
  • Initializing a Variable with defvar
  • copy-region-as-kill
    • The Body of copy-region-as-kill
      • The kill-append function
      • The else-part of copy-region-as-kill
  • Review
  • Searching Exercises
• How Lists are Implemented
  • Exercise
• Yanking Text Back
  • Kill Ring Overview
  • The kill-ring-yank-pointer Variable
  • Exercises with yank and nthcdr
• Loops and Recursion
  • while
    • A while Loop and a List
    • An Example: print-elements-of-list
    • A Loop with an Incrementing Counter
      • Example with incrementing counter
      • The parts of the function definition
      • Putting the function definition together
    • Loop with a Decrementing Counter
      • Example with decrementing counter
      • The parts of the function definition
      • Putting the function definition together
  • Recursion
    • Recursion with a List
    • Recursion in Place of a Counter
      • An argument of 3
    • Recursion Example Using cond
  • Looping Exercise
• Regular Expression Searches
  • The Regular Expression for sentence-end
  • The re-search-forward Function
  • forward-sentence
    • The while loops
    • The regular expression search
  • forward-paragraph: a Goldmine of Functions
    • The let* expression
    • The forward motion while loop
    • Between paragraphs
    • Within paragraphs
    • No fill prefix
    • With a fill prefix
    • Summary
  • Create Your Own `TAGS' File
  • Review
  • Exercises with re-search-forward
• Counting: Repetition and Regexps
  • The count-words-region Function
    • The Whitespace Bug in count-words-region
  • Count Words Recursively
  • Exercise: Counting Punctuation
• Counting Words in a defun
  • What to Count?
  • What Constitutes a Word or Symbol?
  • The count-words-in-defun Function
  • Count Several defuns Within a File
  • Find a File
  • lengths-list-file in Detail
  • Count Words in defuns in Different Files
    • The append Function
  • Recursively Count Words in Different Files
  • Prepare the Data for Display in a Graph
    • Sorting Lists
    • Making a List of Files
• Readying a Graph
  • The graph-body-print Function
  • The recursive-graph-body-print Function
  • Need for Printed Axes
  • Exercise
• Your `.emacs' File
  • Site-wide Initialization Files
  • Setting Variables for One Session
  • Beginning a `.emacs' File
  • Text and Auto Fill Mode
  • Mail Aliases
  • Indent Tabs Mode
  • Some Keybindings
  • Loading Files
  • Autoloading
  • A Simple Extension: line-to-top-of-window
  • Keymaps
  • X11 Colors
  • V19 Miscellaneous
  • A Modified Mode Line
• Debugging
  • debug
  • debug-on-entry
  • debug-on-quit and (debug)
  • The edebug Source Level Debugger
  • Debugging Exercises
• Conclusion
• The the-the Function
• Handling the Kill Ring
  • The rotate-yank-pointer Function
    • The Body of rotate-yank-pointer
      • The else-part of the if expression
      • The % remainder function
      • Using % in rotate-yank-pointer
      • Pointing to the last element
  • yank
    • Passing the argument
    • Passing a negative argument
  • yank-pop
• A Graph with Labelled Axes
  • The print-graph Varlist
  • The print-Y-axis Function
    • Side Trip: Compute a Remainder
    • Construct a Y Axis Element
    • Create a Y Axis Column
    • Final Version of print-Y-axis
  • The print-X-axis Function
    • X Axis Tic Marks
  • Printing the Whole Graph
    • Testing print-graph
    • Graphing Numbers of Words and Symbols
      • A lambda Expression
      • The mapcar Function
      • Another Bug ... Most Insidious
    • The Printed Graph
• Index

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