CHAPTER 10 Editors

10.2 Configuring Your emacs Session

To set or toggle emacs variables, or to use emacs built-in functions, use the <escape> key ("Meta" is how emacs refers to it), followed by the letter x, then by the variable or function and its arguments.

M-x what-line what line is the cursor on?

M-x auto-fill-mode turn on word-wrap

M-x auto-fill-mode turn off word-wrap

M-x set-variable<return>

fill-column<return> set line-length to

45 45 characters

M-x set-variable<return>

auto-save-interval<return> save the file automatically after every

300 300 keystrokes

M-x goto-line<return>16 move the cursor to line 16

M-x help-for-help invoke emacs help when C-h has been bound to the backspace key

The following is a sample .emacs file:

(message "Loading ~/.emacs...")

; Comments begin with semi-colons and continue to the end of the line.

(setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) ;turn on word-wrap

(setq fill-column 45) ;line-length=45 chars

(setq auto-save-interval 300) ;save after every 300 keystrokes

; Bind (or map) the rubout (control-h) function to the backspace key

(global-set-key "\C-h" 'backward-delete-char-untabify)

; Bind the emacs help function to the keystroke sequence "C-x ?".

(global-set-key "\C-x?" 'help-for-help)

; To jump to line 16, type M-#<return>16

(global-set-key "\M-#" 'goto-line)

; To find out what line you are on, type M-n

(global-set-key "\M-n" 'what-line)

(message "~/.emacs loaded.")

(message "")