GNU Emacs Manual

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GNU Emacs Manual

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Distribution

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

Preamble

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

A. GNU Free Documentation License

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

Introduction

B. The Organization of the Screen

B.5 Kinds of User Input

B.6 Keys

B.7 Keys and Commands

B.8 Character Set for Text

C. Entering and Exiting Emacs

C.1 Exiting Emacs

D. Basic Editing Commands

D.1 Inserting Text

D.2 Changing the Location of Point

D.8 Continuation Lines

D.9 Cursor Position Information

D.10 Numeric Arguments

D.11 Repeating a Command

E. The Minibuffer

E.1 Minibuffers for File Names

E.2 Editing in the Minibuffer

E.3 Completion

E.3.1 Completion Example

E.3.2 Completion Commands

E.3.3 Strict Completion

E.3.4 Completion Options

E.4 Minibuffer History

E.5 Repeating Minibuffer Commands

F. Running Commands by Name

G. Help

G.1 Help Summary

G.2 Documentation for a Key

G.3 Help by Command or Variable Name

G.4 Apropos

G.5 Keyword Search for Lisp Libraries

G.6 Help for International Language Support

G.7 Help Mode Commands

G.8 Other Help Commands

G.9 Help on Active Text and Tooltips

H. The Mark and the Region

H.1 Setting the Mark

H.2 Transient Mark Mode

H.3 Operating on the Region

H.4 Commands to Mark Textual Objects

H.5 The Mark Ring

H.6 The Global Mark Ring

H.7 Deletion and Killing

H.7.1 Deletion

H.7.2 Killing by Lines

H.7.3 Other Kill Commands

H.8 Yanking

H.8.1 The Kill Ring

H.8.2 Appending Kills

H.8.3 Yanking Earlier Kills

H.9 Accumulating Text

H.10 Rectangles

I. Registers

I.1 Saving Positions in Registers

I.2 Saving Text in Registers

I.3 Saving Rectangles in Registers

I.4 Saving Window Configurations in Registers

I.5 Keeping Numbers in Registers

I.6 Keeping File Names in Registers

I.7 Bookmarks

J. Controlling the Display

J.1 Using Multiple Typefaces

J.2 Font Lock mode

J.3 Highlight Changes Mode

J.4 Interactive Highlighting by Matching

J.5 Trailing Whitespace

J.6 Scrolling

J.7 Horizontal Scrolling

J.8 Follow Mode

J.9 Selective Display

J.10 Optional Mode Line Features

J.11 How Text Is Displayed

J.12 Customization of Display

J.13 Displaying the Cursor

K. Searching and Replacement

K.1 Incremental Search

K.1.1 Slow Terminal Incremental Search

K.2 Nonincremental Search

K.3 Word Search

K.4 Regular Expression Search

K.5 Syntax of Regular Expressions

K.6 Searching and Case

K.7 Replacement Commands

K.7.1 Unconditional Replacement

K.7.2 Regexp Replacement

K.7.3 Replace Commands and Case

K.7.4 Query Replace

K.8 Other Search-and-Loop Commands

L. Commands for Fixing Typos

L.1 Killing Your Mistakes

L.2 Transposing Text

L.3 Case Conversion

L.4 Checking and Correcting Spelling

M.3.1.1 Single or Numbered Backups

M.3.1.2 Automatic Deletion of Backups

M.3.1.3 Copying vs. Renaming

M.3.2 Protection against Simultaneous Editing

M.3.3 Shadowing Files

M.3.4 Updating Time Stamps Automatically

M.4 Reverting a Buffer

M.5 Auto-Saving: Protection Against Disasters

M.5.1 Auto-Save Files

M.5.2 Controlling Auto-Saving

M.5.3 Recovering Data from Auto-Saves

M.6 File Name Aliases

M.7 Version Control

M.7.1 Introduction to Version Control

M.7.1.1 Supported Version Control Systems

M.7.1.2 Concepts of Version Control

M.7.2 Version Control and the Mode Line

M.7.3 Basic Editing under Version Control

M.7.3.1 Basic Version Control with Locking

M.7.3.2 Basic Version Control without Locking

M.7.3.3 Advanced Control in C-x C-q

M.7.3.4 Features of the Log Entry Buffer

M.7.4 Examining And Comparing Old Versions

M.7.5 The Secondary Commands of VC

M.7.5.1 Registering a File for Version Control

M.7.5.2 VC Status Commands

M.7.5.3 Undoing Version Control Actions

M.7.5.4 Dired under VC

M.7.5.5 VC Dired Commands

M.7.6 Multiple Branches of a File

M.7.6.1 Switching between Branches

M.7.6.2 Creating New Branches

M.7.6.3 Merging Branches

M.7.6.4 Multi-User Branching

M.7.7 Remote Repositories

M.7.7.1 Version Backups

M.7.7.2 Local Version Control

M.7.8 Snapshots

M.7.8.1 Making and Using Snapshots

M.7.8.2 Snapshot Caveats

M.7.9 Miscellaneous Commands and Features of VC

M.7.9.1 Change Logs and VC

M.7.9.2 Renaming VC Work Files and Master Files

M.7.9.3 Inserting Version Control Headers

M.7.10 Customizing VC

M.7.10.1 General Options

M.7.10.2 Options for RCS and SCCS

M.7.10.3 Options specific for CVS

M.8 File Directories

M.9 Comparing Files

M.10 Miscellaneous File Operations

M.11 Accessing Compressed Files

M.12 File Archives

M.13 Remote Files

M.14 Quoted File Names

M.15 File Name Cache

M.16 Convenience Features for Finding Files

N. Using Multiple Buffers

N.1 Creating and Selecting Buffers

N.2 Listing Existing Buffers

N.3 Miscellaneous Buffer Operations

N.4 Killing Buffers

N.5 Operating on Several Buffers

N.6 Indirect Buffers

N.7 Convenience Features and Customization of Buffer Handling

N.7.1 Making Buffer Names Unique

N.7.2 Switching Between Buffers using Substrings

N.7.3 Customizing Buffer Menus

O. Multiple Windows

O.1 Concepts of Emacs Windows

O.2 Splitting Windows

O.3 Using Other Windows

O.4 Displaying in Another Window

O.5 Forcing Display in the Same Window

O.6 Deleting and Rearranging Windows

O.7 Window Handling Convenience Features and Customization

P. Frames and X Windows

P.1 Mouse Commands for Editing

P.2 Secondary Selection

P.3 Using the Clipboard

P.4 Following References with the Mouse

P.5 Mouse Clicks for Menus

P.6 Mode Line Mouse Commands

P.7 Creating Frames

P.8 Frame Commands

P.9 Making and Using a Speedbar Frame

P.10 Multiple Displays

P.11 Special Buffer Frames

P.12 Setting Frame Parameters

P.13 Scroll Bars

P.14 Scrolling With "Wheeled" Mice

P.15 Menu Bars

P.16 Tool Bars

P.17 Using Dialog Boxes

P.18 Tooltips (or "Balloon Help")

P.19 Mouse Avoidance

P.20 Non-Window Terminals

P.21 Using a Mouse in Terminal Emulators

Q. International Character Set Support

Q.1 Introduction to International Character Sets

Q.2 Enabling Multibyte Characters

Q.3 Language Environments

Q.4 Input Methods

Q.5 Selecting an Input Method

Q.6 Unibyte and Multibyte Non-ASCII characters

Q.7 Coding Systems

Q.8 Recognizing Coding Systems

Q.9 Specifying a Coding System

Q.10 Fontsets

Q.11 Defining fontsets

Q.12 Undisplayable Characters

Q.13 Single-byte Character Set Support

R. Major Modes

R.1 How Major Modes are Chosen

S. Indentation

S.1 Indentation Commands and Techniques

S.2 Tab Stops

S.3 Tabs vs. Spaces

T. Commands for Human Languages

T.5.3 Explicit Fill Commands

T.5.4 The Fill Prefix

T.5.5 Adaptive Filling

T.6 Case Conversion Commands

T.7 Text Mode

T.8 Outline Mode

T.8.1 Format of Outlines

T.8.2 Outline Motion Commands

T.8.3 Outline Visibility Commands

T.8.4 Viewing One Outline in Multiple Views

T.8.5 Folding Editing

T.9 TeX Mode

T.9.1 TeX Editing Commands

T.9.2 LaTeX Editing Commands

T.9.3 TeX Printing Commands

T.9.4 TeX Mode Miscellany

T.10 Nroff Mode

T.11 Editing Formatted Text

T.11.1 Requesting to Edit Formatted Text

T.11.2 Hard and Soft Newlines

T.11.3 Editing Format Information

T.11.4 Faces in Formatted Text

T.11.5 Colors in Formatted Text

T.11.6 Indentation in Formatted Text

T.11.7 Justification in Formatted Text

T.11.8 Setting Other Text Properties

T.11.9 Forcing Enriched Mode

U. Editing Programs

U.1 Major Modes for Programming Languages

U.2 Top-Level Definitions, or Defuns

U.2.1 Left Margin Convention

U.2.2 Moving by Defuns

U.2.3 Imenu

U.2.4 Which Function Mode

U.3 Indentation for Programs

U.3.1 Basic Program Indentation Commands

U.3.2 Indenting Several Lines

U.3.3 Customizing Lisp Indentation

U.3.4 Commands for C Indentation

U.3.5 Customizing C Indentation

U.4 Commands for Editing with Parentheses

U.4.1 Expressions with Balanced Parentheses

U.4.2 Moving in the Parenthesis Structure

U.4.3 Automatic Display Of Matching Parentheses

U.5 Manipulating Comments

U.5.1 Comment Commands

U.5.2 Multiple Lines of Comments

U.5.3 Options Controlling Comments

U.6 Documentation Lookup

U.6.1 Info Documentation Lookup

U.6.2 Man Page Lookup

U.6.3 Emacs Lisp Documentation Lookup

U.7 Hideshow minor mode

U.8 Completion for Symbol Names

U.9 Glasses minor mode

U.10 Other Features Useful for Editing Programs

U.11 C and Related Modes

U.11.1 C Mode Motion Commands

U.11.2 Electric C Characters

U.11.3 Hungry Delete Feature in C

U.11.4 Other Commands for C Mode

U.11.5 Comments in C Modes

U.12 Fortran Mode

U.12.1 Motion Commands

U.12.2 Fortran Indentation

U.12.2.1 Fortran Indentation and Filling Commands

U.12.2.2 Continuation Lines

U.12.2.3 Line Numbers

U.12.2.4 Syntactic Conventions

U.12.2.5 Variables for Fortran Indentation

U.12.3 Fortran Comments

U.12.4 Fortran Auto Fill Mode

U.12.5 Checking Columns in Fortran

U.12.6 Fortran Keyword Abbrevs

U.13 Asm Mode

V. Compiling and Testing Programs

V.1 Running Compilations under Emacs

V.2 Searching with Grep under Emacs

V.3 Compilation Mode

V.4 Subshells for Compilation

V.5 Running Debuggers Under Emacs

V.5.1 Starting GUD

V.5.2 Debugger Operation

V.5.3 Commands of GUD

V.5.4 GUD Customization

V.5.5 GUD Tooltips

V.6 Executing Lisp Expressions

V.7 Libraries of Lisp Code for Emacs

V.8 Evaluating Emacs-Lisp Expressions

V.9 Lisp Interaction Buffers

V.10 Running an External Lisp

W. Maintaining Programs

W.1 Change Logs

W.2 Tags Tables

W.2.1 Source File Tag Syntax

W.2.2 Creating Tags Tables

W.2.3 Etags Regexps

W.2.4 Selecting a Tags Table

W.2.5 Finding a Tag

W.2.6 Searching and Replacing with Tags Tables

W.2.7 Tags Table Inquiries

W.3 Merging Files with Emerge

W.3.1 Overview of Emerge

W.3.2 Submodes of Emerge

W.3.3 State of a Difference

W.3.4 Merge Commands

W.3.5 Exiting Emerge

W.3.6 Combining the Two Versions

W.3.7 Fine Points of Emerge

X. Abbrevs

X.1 Abbrev Concepts

X.2 Defining Abbrevs

X.3 Controlling Abbrev Expansion

X.4 Examining and Editing Abbrevs

X.5 Saving Abbrevs

X.6 Dynamic Abbrev Expansion

X.7 Customizing Dynamic Abbreviation

Y. Editing Pictures

Y.1 Basic Editing in Picture Mode

Y.2 Controlling Motion after Insert

Y.3 Picture Mode Tabs

Y.4 Picture Mode Rectangle Commands

Z. Sending Mail

Z.1 The Format of the Mail Buffer

Z.2 Mail Header Fields

Z.3 Mail Aliases

Z.4 Mail Mode

Z.4.1 Mail Sending

Z.4.2 Mail Header Editing

Z.4.3 Citing Mail

Z.4.4 Mail Mode Miscellany

Z.5 Mail Amusements

Z.6 Mail-Composition Methods

AA. Reading Mail with Rmail

AA.1 Basic Concepts of Rmail

AA.2 Scrolling Within a Message

AA.3 Moving Among Messages

AA.4 Deleting Messages

AA.5 Rmail Files and Inboxes

AA.6 Multiple Rmail Files

AA.7 Copying Messages Out to Files

AA.8 Labels

AA.9 Rmail Attributes

AA.10 Sending Replies

AA.11 Summaries

AA.11.1 Making Summaries

AA.11.2 Editing in Summaries

AA.12 Sorting the Rmail File

AA.13 Display of Messages

AA.14 Rmail and Coding Systems

AA.15 Editing Within a Message

AA.16 Digest Messages

AA.17 Converting an Rmail File to Inbox Format

AA.18 Reading Rot13 Messages

AA.19 movemail and POP

AB. Dired, the Directory Editor

AB.1 Entering Dired

AB.2 Navigation in the Dired Buffer

AB.3 Deleting Files with Dired

AB.4 Flagging Many Files at Once

AB.5 Visiting Files in Dired

AB.6 Dired Marks vs. Flags

AB.7 Operating on Files

AB.8 Shell Commands in Dired

AB.9 Transforming File Names in Dired

AB.10 File Comparison with Dired

AB.11 Subdirectories in Dired

AB.12 Moving Over Subdirectories

AB.13 Hiding Subdirectories

AB.14 Updating the Dired Buffer

AB.15 Dired and find

AC. The Calendar and the Diary

AC.1 Movement in the Calendar

AC.1.1 Motion by Standard Lengths of Time

AC.1.2 Beginning or End of Week, Month or Year

AC.1.3 Specified Dates

AC.2 Scrolling in the Calendar

AC.3 Counting Days

AC.4 Miscellaneous Calendar Commands

AC.5 LaTeX Calendar

AC.6 Holidays

AC.7 Times of Sunrise and Sunset

AC.8 Phases of the Moon

AC.9 Conversion To and From Other Calendars

AC.9.1 Supported Calendar Systems

AC.9.2 Converting To Other Calendars

AC.9.3 Converting From Other Calendars

AC.9.4 Converting from the Mayan Calendar

AC.10 The Diary

AC.10.1 Commands Displaying Diary Entries

AC.10.2 The Diary File

AC.10.3 Date Formats

AC.10.4 Commands to Add to the Diary

AC.10.5 Special Diary Entries

AC.11 Appointments

AC.12 Daylight Savings Time

AC.13 Summing Time Intervals

AC.14 Gnus

AC.14.1 Gnus Buffers

AC.14.2 When Gnus Starts Up

AC.14.3 Summary of Gnus Commands

AC.15 Running Shell Commands from Emacs

AC.15.1 Single Shell Commands

AC.15.2 Interactive Inferior Shell

AC.15.3 Shell Mode

AC.15.4 Shell Command History

AC.15.4.1 Shell History Ring

AC.15.4.2 Shell History Copying

AC.15.4.3 Shell History References

AC.15.5 Directory Tracking

AC.15.6 Shell Mode Options

AC.15.7 Emacs Terminal Emulator

AC.15.8 Term Mode

AC.15.9 Page-At-A-Time Output

AC.15.10 Remote Host Shell

AC.16 Using Emacs as a Server

AC.17 Invoking emacsclient

AC.18 Hardcopy Output

AC.19 PostScript Hardcopy

AC.20 Variables for PostScript Hardcopy

AC.21 Sorting Text

AC.22 Narrowing

AC.23 Two-Column Editing

AC.24 Editing Binary Files

AC.25 Saving Emacs Sessions

AC.26 Recursive Editing Levels

AC.27 Emulation

AC.28 Hyperlinking and Navigation Features

AC.28.1 Following URLs

AC.28.2 Activating URLs

AC.28.3 Finding Files and URLs at Point

AC.28.4 Finding Function and Variable Definitions

AC.29 Dissociated Press

AC.30 Other Amusements

AD. Customization

AD.1 Minor Modes

AD.2 Variables

AD.2.1 Examining and Setting Variables

AD.2.2 Easy Customization Interface

AD.2.2.1 Customization Groups

AD.2.2.2 Changing an Option

AD.2.2.3 Customizing Faces

AD.2.2.4 Customizing Specific Items

AD.2.3 Hooks

AD.2.4 Local Variables

AD.2.5 Local Variables in Files

AD.3 Keyboard Macros

AD.3.1 Basic Use

AD.3.2 Naming and Saving Keyboard Macros

AD.3.3 Executing Macros with Variations

AD.4 Customizing Key Bindings

AD.4.1 Keymaps

AD.4.2 Prefix Keymaps

AD.4.3 Local Keymaps

AD.4.4 Minibuffer Keymaps

AD.4.5 Changing Key Bindings Interactively

AD.4.6 Rebinding Keys in Your Init File

AD.4.7 Rebinding Function Keys

AD.4.8 Named ASCII Control Characters

AD.4.9 Non-ASCII Characters on the Keyboard

AD.4.10 Rebinding Mouse Buttons

AD.4.11 Disabling Commands

AD.5 Keyboard Translations

AD.6 The Syntax Table

AD.7 The Init File, `~/.emacs'

AD.7.1 Init File Syntax

AD.7.2 Init File Examples

AD.7.3 Terminal-specific Initialization

AD.7.4 How Emacs Finds Your Init File

AD.8 Quitting and Aborting

AD.9 Dealing with Emacs Trouble

AD.9.1 If DEL Fails to Delete

AD.9.2 Recursive Editing Levels

AD.9.3 Garbage on the Screen

AD.9.4 Garbage in the Text

AD.9.5 Spontaneous Entry to Incremental Search

AD.9.6 Running out of Memory

AD.9.7 Recovery After a Crash

AD.9.8 Emergency Escape

AD.9.9 Help for Total Frustration

AD.10 Reporting Bugs

AD.10.1 When Is There a Bug

AD.10.2 Understanding Bug Reporting

AD.10.3 Checklist for Bug Reports

AD.10.4 Sending Patches for GNU Emacs

AD.11 Contributing to Emacs Development

AD.12 How To Get Help with GNU Emacs

AE. Command Line Arguments

AE.1 Action Arguments

AE.2 Initial Options

AE.3 Command Argument Example

AE.4 Resuming Emacs with Arguments

AE.5 Environment Variables

AE.5.1 General Variables

AE.5.2 Miscellaneous Variables

AE.6 Specifying the Display Name

AE.7 Font Specification Options

AE.8 Window Color Options

AE.9 Options for Window Geometry

AE.10 Internal and External Borders

AE.11 Frame Titles

AE.12 Icons

AE.13 X Resources

AE.14 Lucid Menu X Resources

AE.15 LessTif Menu X Resources

AF. Emacs 20 Antinews

AG. Emacs and the Mac OS

AG.1 Keyboard Input on the Mac

AG.2 International Character Set Support on the Mac

AG.3 Environment Variables and Command Line Arguments.

AG.4 Volumes and Directories on the Mac

AG.5 Specifying Fonts on the Mac

AG.6 Mac-Specific Lisp Functions

AH. Emacs and MS-DOS

AH.1 Keyboard and Mouse on MS-DOS

AH.2 Display on MS-DOS

AH.3 File Names on MS-DOS

AH.4 Text Files and Binary Files

AH.5 Printing and MS-DOS

AH.6 International Support on MS-DOS

AH.7 Subprocesses on MS-DOS

AH.8 Subprocesses on Windows 9X/ME and Windows NT/2K

AH.9 Using the System Menu on Windows

The GNU Manifesto

What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix!

Why I Must Write GNU

Why GNU Will Be Compatible with Unix

How GNU Will Be Available

Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help

How You Can Contribute

Why All Computer Users Will Benefit

Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals

Glossary

AI. Acknowledgments

Key (Character) Index

Command-Line Options Index

Command and Function Index

Variable Index

Concept Index

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