But if you close Emacs and open it back up again the previous stored settings will have been flushed from memory. Everything you have accomplished so far is stored only in the current Emacs session.
#Emacs save how to#
And you have seen how to name and bind those key sequences with function definition. You have already seen how to record and playback key sequences by defining keyboard macros. (You’ll see how to save that function and key binding into permanent memory in the next section.) Loading Your Macros as Stored Functions For example, you can bind your function to C-x C-k 1, and in practice that keyboard input would Control-x Control-k followed by the number 1. This means you can use numbers 0-9 and letters A-Z (lower and upper case) to store your function. Numbers and letters prefixed with C-x C-k have been reserved just for macros. Or, you can use the reserved macro key bindings. You can temporarily bind your current macro to an existing set key, knowing that when you close Emacs and open it later the function and key mapping will have been wiped from memory. If you are inadvertently going to overwrite an existing key sequence, Emacs will warn you. So what can you do? If you already know an available key sequence, you can go ahead and put it here. Remember, many of the best keys are already used in various keymaps throughout your Emacs system. When prompted in the minibuffer, you will be asked to input your desired key.
Notice, “b” for “bind” as the mnemonic clue for remembering this function. You can do that with the kmacro-bind-to-key function, which is also bound to C-x C-k b. This is the best time to bind your custom function to a key. Your function is now written into temporary memory. For example, if you wanted to use a namespace of “abc”, your custom function would be named something like this: abc/my-function. Namespaces precede function name with some text and a forward slash ( /). This way, you can put in a custom namespace to make sure that your function will not interfere with any predefined function in Emacs.
#Emacs save pro#
Pro tip: Emacs Lisp allows for the use of namespaces. (Notice, n for “name” as a mnemonic hint.)Īfter running the naming function you will be prompted to type in the name of your function in the minibuffer. That means the most recent macro in memory, still stored there, will be named by this function. This function, as the name suggests, operates on the last macro you defined. To name a macro, Emacs will use a pre-defined function called kmacro-name-last-macro. Once you have defined a macro (with ) and run it once or several times (with ), and decided you want to save it, you’ll start by giving it a name. Bearing in mind, the naming must be done before the saving. Now you have arrived at the important part, understanding how to name and save keyboard macros in Emacs. How To Name and Save Keyboard Macros in Emacs
#Emacs save code#
With Emacs, you can use the keyboard macros in a similar fashion, but you don’t have to know much about Lisp code in order to record your function and save it for use later.
#Emacs save series#
However, in shell scripting you would use an interpreted language like bash, for example, to create a series of commands, loops, pipes, and other constructs to script a kind of shell function that does what you want it to do.
Your custom function is basically just a series of key commands. This means you can save time and energy by taking key sequences you use frequently and saving them as a new custom function. Every time you press a key or combination of keys, different functions run in the background. Just about everything you do in Emacs involves a sequence of key inputs.
#Emacs save full#
Installing and using Emacs is ideal for private hosting but can be used on cPanel VPS hosting as well.īe sure to first check out our full guide on how to record and playback keyboard macros in Emacs. Instead of endlessly typing and re-typing the same set of commands, you can use keyboard macros in Emacs to record and save those key command sequences as functions that can be called upon later. There will be many instances in which a valuable sequence of commands may need to be repeated an indefinite amount of times.