Learn Emacs Lisp in 30 Minutes

learn.org

Lets Learn Emacs Lisp

Emacs terminology

How to Learn Emacs

buffer

The area containing text kinda like a tab in a browser

point

The cursor

window

A section of the emacs window containing text

• seperated by splits

frame

Dedicated Emacs Window (meaning your OS’s window)

minibuffer

Text area at the bottom of a frame

mark

The point where highlighted text starts

• the mark is set with C-SPC

region

area between the point and the mark (often highlighted)

• kill-region (C-w) makes use of this

Major Mode

current programming language

Minor Mode

(enabled feature such as spellchecking)

Basic Syntax

• Calling functions

  (defun my-add-function (num)
    (+ num 1))
  
  (my-add-function 1)
      

  2

Alternatively we can use funcall

(funcall 'my-add-function 1)

2

Symbols

You can see that I put a quote before the my-add-function

This quote is basically a way to prevent evaluation of my-add-function

if we evaluated my-add-function it would look it up as if it was a variable.

To give the symbol my-add-function it’s self we need to quote it.

Symbols are often used in place of where some languages would rely on a string.

I go into this a little more in my video LEARN EMACS LISP - Mostly The Strange Parts - YouTube

Basic Types

Evaluate each of these with C-x C-e

numbers

1

strings

“hello”

symbols

‘hello

keywords

:hello

chars

?h

true

t

false

nil

pairs (cons cell)

(cons 1 2)

lists

(list 1 2 3)

Quote

Quote as in ’ tells Emacs not to evaluate the following expression

'(+ 1 2)

(+ 1 2)

We used quote to create the symbol above.

'i-am-a-symbol

i-am-a-symbol

for example if we evaluate (list 1 2) we get (1 2)

Using quote we can prevent evaluation and skip the use of list all together

'(1 2)

(1 2)

This is why you may hear people say that in lisp code is data

This can also be done for something like a cons cell to skip the use of cons in (cons 1 2)

'(1 . 2)

Note that (1 . 2) is how a cons cell is represented

Quasiquote

In addition to the regular quote emacs has a special version of it called quasiquote which allows us to unquote and experession.

Here is a quick example

`(1 2 ,(+ 1 2))

Note that we use ` as quasiquote rather than =’= and =,= to unquote

Some quick practical examples

Interactive functions

All commands you can use (seen with M-x) are functions

They require the use of (interactive) inside the functon to tell emacs it can be used as a command.

(defun insert-numbers ()
  "inserts an a sequence of numbers"
  (interactive)
  (insert "1 2 3"))

insert-numbers insert-numbers

These interactive functions can be accessed via a keybinding

The string at the top is simply for documentation purposes

To learn more about a function you can use

(describe-function 'insert-numbers)

This is also available via M-x

Key Binding

The most general way to bind a new key is using global-set-key

(global-set-key (kbd "C-S-s") 'insert-numbers) ;; control shift s

insert-numbers

kbd here turns our string into something Emacs can convert into a key

If you are using a more modern Emacs you can skip the kbd step by using

(keymap-global-set "C-S-s" 'insert-numbers)

insert-numbers

I will stick to the functions prefixed with keymap for now as they often you want keys to be set only for a specific mode

for example lets say we want a key that will insert an if statement in C

(defun c--insert-if ()
  (interactive)
  (insert "if () {\n}"))
(keymap-set c-mode-map "C-S-l" 'c--insert-if)

c–insert-if

Now if I open a C file

if () {
}

There is a corresponding map for basically every mode in Emacs simply by following the name of the mode with -map

If I would like to learn more about a key I can use

(describe-key (kbd "C-S-s"))

Alternatively C-h k then press the key it’s self

Namespaceing

Since all function names are shared in Emacs packages prefix their functions with the name of the package as to avoid confusion and conflicting names

for example

org--newline

is a function used by org-mode to create a newline

the -- is to indicate it’s only meant to be used by org-mode internally

org-babel-tangle-file On the other hand is intended to be used by anyone which is why there is only a single -

More Emacs lisp features

Conditionals

if

(if t
    'it-was-true
  'it-was-false)

it-was-true

(if nil
    'it-was-true
  'it-was-false)

it-was-false

As mentioned above we often use t to mean true but really anything other than nil is considered true

(if 'this-is-true
    'it-was-true
  'it-was-false)

when and unless

Often if expressions can be difficult to read so when you only need to handle when something is true we use when

(when t
  'this-is-true)

If we want to handle the case that something is nil we use unless

(unless nil
  'this-is-false)

this-is-false

and, or, not

Like in many other languages we can use and, or, and not

(and t nil)

(and t t)

(or t nil)

(not t)

progn

In Elisp the last expression to be evaluated is returned.

While nice in most cases it can be a pain when we want to perform a sequence of operations in an if expression.

This is solved with progn

(if t
    (progn
      (message "print this in minibuffer")
      'this-was-true)
  'this-was-false)

this-was-true

This is another reason people tend to use when and unless

Variables

Configuration of Emacs is often done via variables.

How do you find these variables? search

C-h v M-x describe-variable

Setting Variables

• setq
  • setopt (has extra features e.g. type checking)
    • These types come from defcustom
• defvar (For creating new variables)
  • e.g. (defvar thing 1 "Just some thing")

Lists (the most important collection)

• cons cells
• cons, car, and cdr

Recall the type cons cell (cons 1 2)

which is basically a pair in most other languages

Lists are actually constructed using cons cells

Chaining these pairs together we can create a list like so

(cons 1 (cons 2 nil))

As you can see a list is simply a chain of cons cells ending with nil

Iteration

Each of these you can learn about using C-h f or M-x describe-function

cl-loop

Probably the most familiar to those coming from other languages

(require 'cl-lib) ; Usually already required in your config anyways
(cl-loop for i from 0 to 10
         collect (* i i))
    

(0 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100)

• I have a video that goes much deeper into it’s use

• while

  (setq my/val 1)
  (setq my/truth t)
  (while my/truth
    (if (= my/val 10)
        (setq my/truth nil))
    (message "%s" (setq my/val (1+ my/val))))
      

  nil

  • dotimes

    (setq total nil)
    (dotimes (i 3)
      (setq total (cons total i)))
    total
            

  • dolist

    (setq total 0)
    (dolist (i '(1 2 3))
      (setq total (+ total i)))
    total
            

    6

Hooks

One thing new comers often get confused by is hooks

A hook is a list of functions to run in a particular situation

(defun my-fun ()
  (interactive)
  ;does something
  (run-hooks 'my-fun-hook))

(add-hook 'my-fun-hook (lambda () (insert "3")))

(add-hook 'my-fun-hook (lambda () (insert "4")))

if you are coming from vim these are similar to autocommands but less finicky

One example usecase would be to change settings for a particular programming language

(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook (lambda ()
                                  (indent-tabs-mode -1)))

This means that whenever I open an emacs lisp file it will use spaces instead of tabs when I hit the TAB key

Temporary Variables

When you want a function local variable people usually use let

(defun what-is-2+2-5 ()
  (let (
        (four (+ 2 2))
        (five 5)
        )
    (- four five)))

;; call this function
(what-is-2+2-5)

More Videos on elisp by me

• LEARN EMACS LISP - Mostly The Strange Parts - YouTube
• LOOP Common Lisps Superior For - YouTube

Next Time

Lexical and Dynamic scoping

Macros

Buffer manipulation