Amiga Plus 1995 #2/Amiga Plus CD - 1995 - No. 2.iso/internet/faq/englisch/gnuemacs

Text File | 1995-04-11 | 146.9 KB | 3,661 lines

Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part1

                       GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction

This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ)
about GNU Emacs 19 with answers.  Some of the answers are not valid for GNU
Emacs 18.

The FAQ is posted to reduce the noise level in the gnu.emacs.help newsgroup
(which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list) which results from the
repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong answers to these questions,
corrections to the wrong answers, corrections to the corrections, debate,
name calling, and generally unproductive use of the mailing list.  Also, it
serves as a repository of the canonical "best" answers to these questions.
However, if you know a better answer or even a slight change that improves
an answer, please tell us!

If you know the answer to a question in the FAQ list, please reply to the
question by e-mail instead of posting.  Help reduce noise!

The FAQ is crossposted to comp.emacs because some sites do not receive the
gnu.* newsgroups.  The FAQ is also crossposted to news.answers.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

A diff file between the last version of the FAQ and this one will be posted
along with the FAQ next month.  Meanwhile, you can get the diffs at

    ftp://the-tech.mit.edu/pub/GNU-Emacs/faq-diffs

Please suggest new questions, answers, wording changes, and deletions by
sending mail to [e-mail].  The most helpful form for
suggestions is a context diff (i.e., the output of `diff -c').  Include
"FAQ" in the subject of messages about the FAQ list.

Please do not send questions to us just because you do not want to disturb
a lot of people and you think we would know the answer.  We do not have
time to answer questions individually.  :-(

--
Reuven M. Lerner <[e-mail]> and the FAQ team (a full list is
at the bottom of the FAQ).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Notation Used in FAQ

1:   What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?
2:   What does "M-x command" mean?
3:   How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?
4:   What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?
5:   What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL?

General Questions

6:   What is the LPF?
7:   What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
8:   What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug,
     comp.emacs, etc.?
9:   Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?
10:  Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?
11:  How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list?
12:  What is the current address of the FSF?

On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help

13:  I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
14:  How do I find out how to do something in Emacs?
15:  How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual?
16:  Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp?
17:  How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
18:  How do I print a Texinfo file?
19:  Can I view Info files without using Emacs?
20:  What informational files are available for Emacs?
21:  Where can I get help in installing Emacs?
22:  Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?

Status of Emacs

23:  Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
24:  What is the latest version of Emacs?
25:  What is different about Emacs 19?

Common Things People Want To Do

26:  How do I set up a .emacs file properly?
27:  How do I debug a .emacs file?
28:  How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?
29:  How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
30:  How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?
31:  How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
32:  How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control)
     characters?
33:  How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?
34:  How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?
35:  How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?
36:  Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?
37:  How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?
38:  How do I change load-path?
39:  How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?
40:  How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?
41:  How do I indent switch statements like this?
42:  How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?
43:  How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?
44:  How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
45:  How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
46:  How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
     indentation of the previous line?
47:  How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
48:  In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef
     commands are handled by the compiler?
49:  Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?
50:  What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?
51:  How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code?
52:  How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?
53:  How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?
54:  How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
     underlined paragraph?
55:  How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?
56:  How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor
     should stay in the same column even if the line is too short?
57:  How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?
58:  How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?
59:  How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?
60:  Where is the documentation for "etags"?
61:  How do I disable backup files?
62:  How do I disable auto-save-mode?
63:  How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options?
64:  How do I delete menus and menu options?
65:  What are hilit19 and font-lock modes, what is the difference between
     them, and how do I customize them?
66:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
     bottom of the screen?
67:  How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?
68:  How can I edit MS-DOS files using Emacs?

Bugs/Problems

69:  Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?
70:  How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my shell buffer?
71:  Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"?
72:  Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?
73:  Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping?
74:  Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?
75:  Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"?
76:  Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
77:  Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?
78:  How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name?
79:  Why does shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
80:  Are there any security risks in Emacs?

Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs

81:  How do I install Emacs?
82:  How do I update Emacs to the latest version?
83:  What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
84:  Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?

Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages

85:  Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
86:  How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
87:  Where can I get Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
88:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
89:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
90:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?
91:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
92:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows?
93:  Where can I get Emacs for Windows NT?
94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
95:  Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
96:  Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
97:  Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?
98:  Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?
99:  Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?
100: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++,
     Objective C, Pascal, and Awk?
101: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs

102: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs
103: SuperCite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
104: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
105: VIP -- vi emulation for Emacs
106: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
107: Hyperbole -- extensible hypertext management system within Emacs
108: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
109: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
110: W3-mode -- A World-Wide Web browser inside of Emacs
111: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes
112: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

113: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
114: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?
115: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
116: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
117: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?
118: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
119: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
120: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?
121: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
122: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
123: How do I "swap" two keys?
124: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
125: What if I don't have a Meta key?
126: What if I don't have an Escape key?
127: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?
128: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
129: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
130: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0?

Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

131: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
132: How do I input 8-bit characters?
133: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?
134: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

Mail and News

135: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
136: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
137: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
138: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
139: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
140: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
141: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
142: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
143: How do I read news under Emacs?
144: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?
145: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?
146: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
147: Why does Gnus put the subjects in replies beyond the 80th column?
148: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
149: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
150: Why can't I kill in Gnus based  on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?
151: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
152: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
153: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
154: Why don't my news postings in Gnus get past the local machine?
155: Why doesn't Gnus generate the "Lines:" header?
156: How do I kill all articles in Gnus but those matching a pattern?
157: How do I abort sending mail or posting a message?
158: How do I fix and resubmit a rejected Gnus posting?
159: How do I automatically mail a copy of a Gnus followup message to
     the original poster?
160: How do I make Gnus behave more like nn, where I scan all the messages
     and select the ones I want before I read any?

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 110), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------
  This FAQ was last updated on March 10, 1995.


Notation Used in FAQ

  Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the
  later answers.

1:   What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?

  C-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Control key

  M-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key (if your computer
       doesn't have a Meta key, see question 125)

  M-C-x: press the `x' key while holding down both Control and Meta
  C-M-x: a synonym for the above

  LFD: Linefeed or Newline; same as C-j
  RET: Return, sometimes marked Enter; same as C-m
  DEL: Delete,  usually not the same as Backspace; same as C-? (See
       question 121 if deleting invokes Emacs help)
  ESC: Escape; same as C-[
  TAB: Tab; same as C-i
  SPC: Space bar

  Key sequences longer than one key (and some single-key sequences) are
  inside double quotes or on lines by themselves.  Any real spaces in such
  a key sequence should be ignored; only SPC really means press the space
  key.

  The ASCII code sent by C-x (except for C-?) is the value that would be
  sent by pressing just `x' minus 96 (or 64 for uppercase `X') and will be
  from 0 to 31.  The ASCII code sent by M-x is the sum of 128 and the ASCII
  code that would be sent by pressing just the `x' key.  Essentially, the
  Control key turns off bits 5 and 6 and the Meta key turns on bit 7.

  NOTE: C-? (aka DEL) is ASCII code 127.  It is a misnomer to call C-?  a
  "control" key, since 127 has both bits 5 and 6 turned ON.  Also, on very
  few keyboards does C-? generate ASCII code 127.

  For further information, see "Characters" and "Keys" in the on-line
  manual.  (See question 3 if you don't know how.)

2:   What does "M-x command" mean?

  "M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then
  type RET.  (See question 1 if you're not sure what "M-x" and "RET" mean.)

  M-x (by default) invokes the command "execute-extended-command".  This
  command allows you to run any Emacs command if you can remember the
  command's name.  If you can't remember the command's name, you can type
  TAB and SPC for completion, `?' for a list of possibilities, and M-p and
  M-n to see previous commands entered.  An Emacs "command" is any
  "interactive" Emacs function.

  NOTE: Your system administrator may have bound other key sequences to
  invoke execute-extended-command.  A function key labeled `Do' is a good
  candidate for this.

  To run non-interactive Emacs functions, see question 51.

3:   How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?

  When we refer you to topic XXX in the on-line manual, you can read this
  manual node inside Emacs (assuming nothing is broken) by typing this:

    C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET

  This invokes Info, the GNU hypertext documentation browser.  If you don't
  already know how to use Info, type `?' from within Info.

  If we refer to topic XXX:YYY, type this:

    C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET m YYY RET

  WARNING: Your system administrator may not have installed the Info files,
  or may have installed them improperly.  In this case you should complain.

  See question 15 if you would like a paper copy of the Emacs manual.

4:   What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?

  These are files that come with Emacs.  The Emacs distribution is divided
  into subdirectories; the important ones are "etc", "lisp", and "src".

  If you use Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system, start
  Emacs, then type "C-h v data-directory RET".  The directory name
  displayed by this will be the full pathname of the installed "etc"
  directory.

  The location of your Info directory (i.e., where on-line documentation is
  stored) is kept in the variable Info-default-directory-list.  Use "C-h v
  Info-default-directory-list RET" to see the contents of this variable,
  which will be a list of directory names.  The last directory in that list
  is probably where most Info files are stored.  By default, Info
  documentation is placed in /usr/local/info.

  Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail; see
  question 20.  All are available in the source distribution.

  WARNING: Your system administrator may have removed the src directory and
  many files from the etc directory.

5:   What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL?

  FSF == Free Software Foundation
  LPF == League for Programming Freedom
  OSF == Open Software Foundation
  GNU == GNU's Not Unix
  RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman
  FTP == File Transfer Protocol
  GPL == GNU General Public License

  NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF.  The LPF opposes
  look-and-feel copyrights and software patents.  The FSF aims to make high
  quality free software available for everyone.  The OSF is a consortium of
  computer vendors which develops commercial software for Unix systems.

  NOTE: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation refers
  to "freedom," not "zero dollars."  Anyone can charge any price for
  GPL-covered software that they want to.  However, in practice, the
  freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low prices, because you can always
  get the software for less money from someone else, because everyone has
  the right to resell or give away GPL-covered software.


General Questions

6:   What is the LPF?

  The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and
  look-and-feel copyrights.  To get more information, feel free to contact
  the LPF via e-mail or otherwise.  You may also contact Joe Wells
  <[e-mail]>; he will be happy to talk with you about the LPF.

  You can find more information about the LPF in the file etc/LPF.  More
  papers describing the LPF's views are available on the Internet and also
  from the LPF:

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/lpf/
    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/lpf/

  You can also get it via anonymous UUCP from osu-cis!~/lpf/*.

7:   What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?

  The real legal meaning of the GNU General Public License (copyleft) will
  only be known if and when a judge rules on its validity and scope.  There
  has never been a copyright infringement case involving the GPL to set any
  precedents.  Please take any discussion regarding this issue to the
  newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, which was created to hold the extensive flame
  wars on the subject.

  RMS writes:

    The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the
    spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work
    pertaining to Emacs should also be free software.  "Free" means that
    all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs.
    To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you
    distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the
    recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed.

8:   What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug,
     comp.emacs, etc.?

  The file etc/MAILINGLISTS discusses the purpose of each GNU mailing-list.
  (See question 20 if you want a copy of the file.)  For those lists which
  are gatewayed with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup name and the
  mailing list address.

  comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general.  This includes
  Emacs along with various other implementations, such as JOVE, MicroEmacs,
  Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, and Epsilon.

  Many people post Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't receive
  any of the gnu.* newsgroups.  Arguments have been made both for and
  against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to comp.emacs.  You have to
  decide for yourself.

  Messages advocating "non-free" software are considered unacceptable on
  any of the gnu.* newsgroups except for gnu.misc.discuss, which was
  created to hold the extensive flame-wars on the subject.  "Non-free"
  software includes any software for which the end user can't freely modify
  the source code and exchange enhancements.  Be careful to remove the
  gnu.* groups from the "Newsgroups:" line when posting a followup that
  recommends such software.

  gnu.emacs.bug is a place where bug reports appear, but avoid posting bug
  reports to this newsgroup (see question 10).

9:   Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?

  The FSF has maintained archives of all of the GNU mailing lists for many
  years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage.  The
  archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual
  postings from, but pretty much everything is there.  The archive is
  available at

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/MailingListArchives/

10:  Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?

  The correct way to report Emacs bugs is by e-mail to
  [e-mail].  Anything sent here also appears in the
  newsgroup gnu.emacs.bug, but please use e-mail instead of news to submit
  the bug report.  This ensures a reliable return address so you can be
  contacted for further details.

  Be sure to read the "Bugs" section of the Emacs manual before reporting a
  bug to bug-gnu-emacs!  The manual describes in detail how to submit a
  useful bug report.  (See question 3 if you don't know how to read the
  manual.)

  RMS says:

    Sending bug reports to help-gnu-emacs (which has the effect of posting
    on gnu.emacs.help) is undesirable because it takes the time of an
    unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and
    have no idea how to fix these problem.  bug-gnu-emacs reaches a much
    smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have
    expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others.

  However, RMS says there are circumstances when it is okay to post to
  gnu.emacs.help:

    If you have reported a bug and you don't hear about a possible fix,
    then after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on
    gnu.emacs.help asking if anyone can help you.

  If you are unsure whether you have a bug, RMS describes how to tell:

    If Emacs crashes, that is a bug.  If Emacs gets compilation errors
    while building, that is a bug.  If Emacs crashes while building, that
    is a bug.  If Lisp code does not do what the documentation says it
    does, that is a bug.

11:  How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list?

  If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named "XXX", you might be able to
  unsubscribe from it by sending a request to the address
  <[e-mail]>.  However, this will not work if you are
  not listed on the main mailing list, but instead receive the mail from a
  distribution point.  In that case, you will have to track down at which
  distribution point you are listed.  Inspecting the "Received:" headers on
  the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the "EXPN" or
  "VRFY" sendmail commands through "telnet <site-address> smtp".  Ask your
  postmaster for help.

12:  What is the current address of the FSF?

  E-mail address: [e-mail]
  Phone number: [phone]

  Postal address:
  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  675 Massachusetts Avenue
  Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

  For details on how to order items directly from the FSF, see the file
  etc/ORDERS.


On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help

13:  I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing?

  Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial.  Just typing `C-h' enters
  the help system.

  WARNING: Your system administrator may have changed `C-h' to act like DEL
  to deal with local keyboards.  You can use M-x help-for-help instead to
  invoke help.  To discover what key (if any) invokes help on your system,
  type "M-x where-is RET help-for-help RET".  This will print a
  comma-separated list of key sequences in the echo area.  Ignore the last
  character in each key sequence listed.  Each of the resulting key
  sequences invokes help.

  NOTE: Emacs help works best if it is invoked by a single key whose value
  should be stored in the variable help-char.

14:  How do I find out how to do something in Emacs?

  There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.

  * The complete text of the Emacs manual is available on-line via the Info
    hypertext reader.  Type "C-h i" to invoke Info.  Typing `h' immediately
    after entering Info will provide a short tutorial on how to use it.

  * You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF.  See question 15.

  * You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to
    invoke them.  You can order one from the FSF for $1 (or 10 for $5), or
    you can print your own from the etc/refcard.tex or etc/refcard.ps files
    in the Emacs distribution.

  * You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
    (actually which match a regular expression) using "C-h a" (M-x
    command-apropos).

  * You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
    certain word using M-x apropos.

  * There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and
    information.  To get a list of these commands, type `?' after `C-h'.

15:  How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual?

  You can order a printed copy of the Emacs manual from the FSF.  For
  details see the file etc/ORDERS.

  The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the "man" directory of
  the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this
  440-page manual yourself (see question 18).

  If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX,
  you can get a PostScript version from

    ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-19.21.ps.gz

  This site requests that you please *confine any major ftping to late
  evenings or early mornings, local time* (Pacific time zone, GMT-8).  A
  DVI version is also available from:

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/emacs-manual-6.0.dvi.gz

  and all prep mirrors (See question 89 for a list).

  A WWW version of the Emacs manual is available at

    http://asis01.cern.ch/infohtml/emacs/emacs.html

  See also question 14 for how to view the manual on-line.

16:  Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp?

  Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
  function, "C-h v" for a variable.

  For more information, obtain the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.  Details on
  ordering it from FSF are in file etc/ORDERS.

  The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is also available on-line, in Info
  format.  Texinfo source for the manual (along with pregenerated Info
  files) is available at

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/elisp-manual-19-2.3.tar.gz

  and all prep mirrors (See question 89 for a list).  See question 17 if
  you want to install the Info files, or question 18 if you want to use the
  Texinfo source to print the manual yourself.

  A WWW version of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is available at

    http://www.cs.indiana.edu/usr/local/www/elisp/lispref/elisp_toc.html

17:  How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?

  First, you must turn the Texinfo files into Info files.  You may do this
  within Emacs, using "M-x texinfo-format-buffer", or with the stand-alone
  "makeinfo" program, available as part of the latest Texinfo package at

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/texinfo-3.1.tar.gz

  and all prep mirrors (see question 89 for a list).

  For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
  comes with Emacs.  This manual also comes installed in Info format, so
  you can read it on-line.

  Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor makeinfo installs the resulting Info
  files in Emacs's Info tree.  To install Info files:

  1. Move the files to the "info" directory in the installed Emacs
     distribution.  See question 4 if you don't know where that is.

  2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
     line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
     installing.  Follow the examples already in this file.  The format is:

       * Topic: (relative-pathname).  Short description of topic.

  If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
  privileges, you have several options:

  * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used.  You
    can feed a file name to the Info-goto-node command (invoked by pressing
    `g' in Info mode) by typing the name of the file in parentheses.  This
    goes to the node named "Top" in that file.  For example, to view a Info
    file named "XXX" in your home directory, you can type this:

      C-h i g (~/XXX) RET

  * You can create your own Info directory.  You can tell Emacs where the
    Info directory is by adding its pathname to the value of the variable
    Info-default-directory-list.  For example, to use a private Info
    directory which is a subdirectory of your home directory named "Info",
    you could put this in your .emacs file:

      (setq Info-default-directory-list
            (cons "~/Info" Info-default-directory-list))

    You will need a top-level Info file named "dir" in this directory which
    has everything the system dir file has in it, except it should list
    only entries for Info files in that directory.  You might not need it
    if all files in this directory were referenced by other "dir" files.
    The node lists from all dir files in Info-default-directory-list are
    merged by the Info system.

18:  How do I print a Texinfo file?

  NOTE: You can't get nicely printed output from Info files; you must still
  have the original Texinfo source file for the manual you want to print.

  Assuming you have TeX installed on your system, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure the first line of the Texinfo file looks like this:

       \input texinfo

     You may need to change "texinfo" to the full pathname of the
     texinfo.tex file, which comes with Emacs as man/texinfo.tex (or copy
     or link it into the current directory).

  2. tex XXX.texinfo

  3. texindex XXX.??

     The texindex program comes with Emacs as man/texindex.c.

  4. tex XXX.texinfo

  5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files at
     your site.

  To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package
  mentioned in question 17.

19:  Can I view Info files without using Emacs?

  Yes.  Here are some alternative programs:

  * Info, a stand-alone version of the Info program, comes as part of the
    Texinfo package.  See question 17 for details.

  * Xinfo, a stand-alone version of the Info program that runs under X
    Windows.  You can get it at

      ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.gz

    and all prep mirrors (See question 89 for a list).

  * Tkinfo, an Info viewer that runs under X Windows and uses Tcl/Tk.  You
    can get Tkinfo at

      ftp://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/pub/misc/tkinfo-0.6.tar.Z
      ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/code/tkinfo-0.6.tar.gz

20:  What informational files are available for Emacs?

  This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be!  A variety of
  informational files about Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU project
  are available for you to read.

  The following files are available in the "etc" directory of the Emacs
  distribution (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is).

    COPYING -- Emacs General Public License
    DISTRIB -- Emacs Availability Information, including the popular
              "Free Software Foundation Order Form"
    FAQ -- Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it)
    FTP -- How to get GNU Software by Internet FTP or by UUCP
    GNU -- The GNU Manifesto
    INTERVIEW -- Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
                 UNIX-compatible software system with BYTE editors
    LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
    MACHINES -- Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
    MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
    NEWS -- Emacs news, a history of user-visible changes
    SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
    SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"

  Latest versions of the above files also available at

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/

  These additional files are available from the FSF via e-mail:

  * GNU's Bulletin, June 1994
      GNU's Who
      Administrivia and Copyright
      What Is the FSF?
      What Is Copyleft?
      What Is GNU?
      What Is the Hurd?
      Free Software Redistributors Donate
      Help from Free Software Companies
      Free Software Support
      What Is the LPF?
      GNU and Other Free Software in Japan
      Announcing the Dictionary Project
      GNUs Flashes
      Forthcoming GNUs
      Freely Available Texts
      GNU Documentation
      GNU Software
      Program/Package Cross Reference
      Tapes
      CD-ROMs
      MS-DOS Diskettes
      Tape & CD-ROM Subscription Service
      The Deluxe Distribution
      How to Get GNU Software
      Other GPLed Software
      Free Software for Microcomputers
      FSF T-shirt
      Project GNU Wish List
      Thank GNUs
      Donations Translate Into Free Software
      Cygnus Matches Donations!
      Free Software Foundation Order Form
      Address Page
  * Legal issues about contributing code to GNU
  * GNU Project Status Report

  A collection of past GNU's Bulletins (as well as other GNU-related
  information) is available at

    http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/gnu.html

21:  Where can I get help in installing Emacs?

  See question 81 for some basic installation hints, and question 83 if you
  have problems with the installation.

  The file etc/SERVICE (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is)
  lists companies and individuals willing to sell you help in installing or
  using Emacs.  An up-to-date version this file is available on
  prep.ai.mit.edu (see question 20).

22:  Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?

  The Emacs FAQ is available in several ways:

  * Via USENET.  If you can read news, the FAQ should be available in your
    news spool, in both the gnu.emacs.help and comp.emacs newsgroups.
    Every news reader should allow you to read any news article that is
    still in the news spool, even if you have read the article before.  You
    may need to read the instructions for your news reader to discover how
    to do this.  In rn, this command will do this for you at the article
    selection level:

      ?GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions?rc:m

    In Gnus, you should type "C-u c-x c-s" from the *Summary* buffer or
    "C-u SPC" from the *Newsgroup* buffer to view all articles in a
    newsgroup.

    If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool,
    it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news
    administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire for a
    while.

  * Via anonymous FTP.  You can always fetch the latest FAQ at

      ftp://the-tech.mit.edu/pub/GNU-Emacs/faq

  * In the Emacs distribution.  Since Emacs 18.56, the latest available
    version of the FAQ at the time of release has been part of the Emacs
    distribution as file etc/FAQ (see question 4).

  * Via the World-Wide Web.  Point your favorite Web browser (Lynx, Mosaic,
    Netscape, w3-mode) at one of the following:

    http://scwww.ucs.indiana.edu/FAQ/Emacs/
    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/top.html
    http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/emacs/faq/index.html

  * Via anonymous ftp and e-mail from rtfm.mit.edu, the main repository for
    FAQs and other items posted to news.answers.  The Emacs FAQs are
    available at

    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/

    If you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can access the archives
    using the rtfm.mit.edu mail server.  The Emacs FAQ can be retrieved by
    sending mail to [e-mail] with a blank subject and
    containing

      send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part1
      send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part2
      send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part3
      send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4
      send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5

    For more information, send email to [e-mail] with
    "help" and "index" in the body on separate lines.

  * As the very last resort, you can e-mail a request to
    [e-mail].  Don't do this unless you
    have made a serious effort to obtain the FAQ list via one of the
    methods listed above.

Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part2

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 110), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------



Status of Emacs

23:  Where does the name "Emacs" come from?

  Emacs originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS.  RMS says he "picked
  the name Emacs because `E' was not in use as an abbreviation on ITS at
  the time."  The first Emacs was a set of macros written in 1976 at MIT by
  RMS for the editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector, originally Tape
  Editor and COrrector) under ITS on a PDP-10.  RMS had already extended
  TECO with a "real-time" full screen mode with active keys.  Emacs was
  started by Guy Steele <[e-mail]> as a project to unify the many
  divergent TECO command sets and key bindings at MIT.

  Many people have said that TECO code looks a lot like line noise.  See
  alt.lang.teco if you are interested.  Someone has written a TECO
  implementation in Emacs Lisp (to find it, see question 87); it would be
  an interesting project to run the original TECO Emacs inside of Emacs.

  For some not-so-serious alternative reasons for Emacs to have that name,
  check out etc/JOKES (see question 4).

24:  What is the latest version of Emacs?

  Emacs 19.28 is the current version as of this writing.

25:  What is different about Emacs 19?

  To find out what has changed in recent versions, type C-h n (M-x
  view-emacs-news).  The oldest changes are at the bottom of the file, so
  you might want to read it starting there, rather than at the top.

  The most obvious changes have to do with the user interface -- Emacs 19
  is fully X-aware, and provides pull-down menus (see question 63) and
  scroll bars.  Emacs 19 also supports fonts and colors, including
  context-specific highlighting of source code and other types of buffers
  (see question 65).

  Other changes include a line number mode, which displays the current line
  number in the mode line, and default bindings for arrow and paging keys
  that work.

  Lower-level changes include a smarter memory allocation scheme (Emacs now
  returns memory to the operating system when you kill buffers), a better
  byte-compiler, and a source-level Emacs Lisp debugger.

  There are also a number of new Lisp packages, ranging from dunnet (an
  Adventure-like program) to mldrag (allows you to drag the mode line up
  and down with mouse buttons) to gud (Grand Unified Debugger mode, for
  many flavors of debuggers).  A number of older Lisp packages, such as
  Gnus, SuperCite and the calendar/diary, have been updated and enhanced to
  work with Emacs 19, and are now included with the standard distribution.


Common Things People Want To Do

26:  How do I set up a .emacs file properly?

  See "Init File" in the on-line manual.

  WARNING: In general, new Emacs users should not have .emacs files,
  because it causes confusing non-standard behavior.  Then they send
  questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as
  documented.  :-)

27:  How do I debug a .emacs file?

  Start Emacs with the "-debug-init" command-line option.  This enables the
  Emacs Lisp debugger before evaluating your .emacs file, and places you in
  the debugger if something goes wrong.  The top line in the trace-back
  buffer will be the error message, and the second or third line of that
  buffer will display the Lisp code from your .emacs file that caused the
  problem.

  You can also evaluate an individual function or argument to a function in
  your .emacs file by moving the cursor to the end of the function or
  argument and typing "C-x C-e" (M-x eval-last-sexp).

  Use "C-h v" (M-x describe-variable) to check the value of variables which
  you are trying to set or use.

28:  How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?

  To find out what line of the buffer you are on right now, do "M-x
  what-line".  Use "M-x goto-line" to go to a specific line.  To find the
  current column number (as well as some other information), type "C-x ="
  (M-x what-cursor-position).

  If you use these commands often, you might want to bind them to a key.
  See question 113 for instructions on how to do that.

  Typing "C-x l" (or M-x count-lines-page) will also tell you what line you
  are on, provided the buffer isn't separated into "pages" with C-l
  characters.  In that case, it will only tell you what line of the current
  "page" you are on.

  To have Emacs automatically display the current line number of the point
  in the mode line, do "M-x line-number-mode".  You can also put the form

    (setq line-number-mode t)

  in your .emacs file to achieve this whenever you start Emacs.  Note that
  Emacs will not display the line number if the buffer is larger than the
  value of the variable line-number-display-limit.

  The "column" package by Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]> permits the
  line and column numbers to be displayed in the mode line; see question 87
  for how to get this package.

  None of the vi emulation modes provide the "set number" capability of vi
  (as far as we know).

29:  How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?

  Put this in your .emacs file:

    (condition-case ()
       (quietly-read-abbrev-file)
      (file-error nil))

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
              (function
                (lambda ()
                 (setq abbrev-mode t))))

30:  How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?

  To turn on auto-fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x
  auto-fill-mode".

  To turn it on for every buffer in a certain mode, you must use the hook
  for that mode.  For example, to turn on auto-fill mode for all text
  buffers, including the following in your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)

  If you want auto-fill mode on in all major modes, do this:

    (setq-default auto-fill-hook 'do-auto-fill)

31:  How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?

  If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension
  ".YYY", this will do it for you:

    (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist))

  Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
  edit in XXX mode (in the second line, if the first line begins with
  "#!"):

    -*-XXX-*-

  Emacs 19 also includes a new variable, interpreter-mode-alist, that
  specifies which mode to use when loading a shell script.  (Emacs
  determines which interpreter you're using by examining the first line of
  the file.)  This feature only applies when the file name doesn't indicate
  which mode to use.  Use "C-h v" (or M-x describe-variable) on
  interpreter-mode-alist to learn more.

32:  How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control)
     characters?

  To search for a single character that appears in the buffer as, for
  example, "\237", you can type "C-s C-q 2 3 7".  (This assumes the value
  of search-quote-char is 17 (i.e., `C-q').)  Searching for ALL unprintable
  characters is best done with a regular expression ("regexp") search.  The
  easiest regexp to use for the unprintable chars is the complement of the
  regexp for the printable chars.

    Regexp for the printable chars: [\t\n\r\f -~]
    Regexp for the unprintable chars: [^\t\n\r\f -~]

  To type these special characters in an interactive argument to
  isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you need to use C-q.  (`\t',
  `\n', `\r', and `\f' stand respectively for TAB, LFD, RET, and C-l.)  So,
  to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward:

    M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET

  Using isearch-forward-regexp:

    M-C-s [^ TAB RET C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~]

  To delete all unprintable characters, simply use replace-regexp:

    M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET

  Replacing is similar to the above.  To replace all unprintable characters
  with a colon, use:

    M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET : RET

  NOTE: * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing
          something in the minibuffer.

33:  How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?

  If you are using a windowing system such as X, you can cause the region
  to be highlighted when the mark is active by including

        (transient-mark-mode t)

  in your .emacs file.  (Also see question 65.)

34:  How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?

  For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines
  whether they are case sensitive:

    (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive
    (setq case-fold-search t)   ; make searches case insensitive

  Similarly, for replacing the variable case-replace determines whether
  replacements preserve case.

  To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major
  mode's hook.  For example:

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
          (function
           (lambda ()
             (setq case-fold-search nil))))

35:  How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?

  Use auto-fill mode, activated by typing "M-x auto-fill-mode".  The
  default maximum line width is 70, determined by the variable fill-column.
  To learn how to turn this on automatically, see question 30.

36:  Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?

  Use Ispell.  See question 109.

37:  How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?

  Use Ispell.  See question 109.  Ispell can handle TeX and *roff
  documents.

38:  How do I change load-path?

  In general, you should only *add* to the load-path.  You can add
  directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this:

    (setq load-path (cons "/XXX/YYY/" load-path))

  To do this relative to your home directory:

    (setq load-path (cons "~/YYY/" load-path)

39:  How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?

  Emacsclient, which comes with Emacs, is for editing a file using an
  already running Emacs rather than starting up a new Emacs.  It does this
  by sending a request to the already running Emacs, which must be
  expecting the request.

  * Setup

    Emacs must have executed the "server-start" function for emacsclient to
    work.  This can be done either by a command line option:

      emacs -f server-start

    or by invoking server-start from the .emacs file:

      (if (some conditions are met) (server-start))

    When this is done, Emacs starts a subprocess running a program called
    "server".  "server" creates a Unix domain socket in the user's home
    directory named .emacs_server.

    To get your news reader, mail reader, etc., to invoke emacsclient, try
    setting the environment variable EDITOR (or sometimes VISUAL) to the
    value "emacsclient".  You may have to specify the full pathname of the
    emacsclient program instead.  Examples:

      # csh commands:
      setenv EDITOR emacsclient
      setenv EDITOR /usr/local/emacs/etc/emacsclient  # using full pathname

      # sh command:
      EDITOR=emacsclient ; export EDITOR

  * Normal use

    When emacsclient is run, it connects to the ".emacs_server" socket and
    passes its command line options to "server".  When "server" receives
    these requests, it sends this information on the the Emacs process,
    which at the next opportunity will visit the files specified.  (Line
    numbers can be specified just like with Emacs.)  The user will have to
    switch to the Emacs window by hand.  When the user is done editing a
    file, the user can type "C-x #" (or M-x server-edit) to indicate this.
    If there is another buffer requested by emacsclient, Emacs will switch
    to it; otherwise emacsclient will exit, signaling the calling program
    to continue.

    NOTE: "emacsclient" and "server" must be running on machines which
    share the same filesystem for this to work.  The pathnames that
    emacsclient specifies should be correct for the filesystem that the
    Emacs process sees.  The Emacs process should not be suspended at the
    time emacsclient is invoked.  emacsclient should either be invoked from
    another X window or from a shell window inside Emacs itself.

    There is an enhanced version of emacsclient/server called "gnuserv" by
    Andy Norman <[e-mail]> which is available in the Emacs Lisp
    Archive (see question 87).  Gnuserv uses Internet domain sockets, so it
    can work across most network connections.  It also supports the
    execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp forms and does not require the client
    program to wait for completion.

40:  How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?

  The variable compilation-error-regexp-alist helps control how Emacs
  parses your compiler output.  It is a list of triples of the form:

        (REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX)

  where REGEXP, FILE-IDX and LINE-IDX are strings.  To help determine what
  the constituent elements should be, load compile.el and then use

        C-h v compilation-error-regexp-alist RET

  to see the current value.  A good idea is to look at compile.el itself as
  the comments included for this variable are quite useful -- the regular
  expressions required for your compiler's output may be very close to one
  already provided.  Once you have determined the proper regexps, use the
  following to inform Emacs of your changes:

        (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
              (cons '(REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX)
                 compilation-error-regexp-alist))

41:  How do I indent switch statements like this?

  Many people want to indent their switch statements like this:

    f()
    {
      switch(x) {
        case A:
          x1;
          break;
        case B:
          x2;
          break;
        default:
          x3;
      }
    }

  The solution at first appears to be: set c-indent-level to 4 and
  c-label-offset to -2.  However, this will give you an indentation spacing
  of four instead of two.

  The solution is to use cc-mode (bundled with Emacs 19, but not the
  default mode) and add the following line:

    (c-set-offset 'case-label '+)

  There appears to be no way to do this with the old c-mode.

42:  How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?

  Use hscroll.el by Wayne Mesard <[e-mail]>.  The current
  version of hscroll is 1.5 (November 1993), and should be included in a
  future Emacs distribution.  If you cannot find the package, write to
  Wayne directly.

  NOTE: The version at the Emacs Lisp Archive is out of date.  Check the
  version number before installing any copies of hscroll you might find!

43:  How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?

  M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode).  This toggles overwrite-mode on and
  off, so exiting from overwrite-mode is as easy as another M-x
  overwrite-mode.

  On some workstations, the "Insert" key toggles overwrite-mode on and off.

44:  How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?

  Martin R. Frank <[e-mail]> writes:

    Tell Emacs to use the "visible bell" instead of the audible bell, and
    set the visible bell to nothing.

    That is, put the following in your TERMCAP environment variable
    (assuming you have one):

      ... :vb=: ...

    And evaluate the following Lisp form:

      (setq visible-bell t)

45:  How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?

  You can adjust the bell volume and duration for all programs with the
  shell command xset.

  Invoking xset without any arguments produces some basic information,
  including the following:

    usage:  xset [-display host:dpy] option ...
      To turn bell off:
          -b                b off               b 0
      To set bell volume, pitch and duration:
           b [vol [pitch [dur]]]          b on

46:  How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
     indentation of the previous line?

  One solution is Indented Text Mode (M-x indented-text-mode).

  If you have auto-fill mode on (see question 30), you can tell Emacs to
  prefix every line with a certain character sequence, the "fill prefix."
  Type the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point after it, and
  then type "C-x ." (set-fill-prefix) to set the fill prefix.  Thereafter,
  auto-filling will automatically put the fill prefix at the beginning of
  new lines, and M-q (fill-paragraph) will maintain any fill prefix when
  refilling the paragraph.

  NOTE: If you have paragraphs with different levels of indentation, you
  will have to set the fill prefix to the correct value each time you move
  to a new paragraph.  To avoid this hassle, try one of the many packages
  available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 87.)  Look up "fill"
  and "indent" in the Lisp Code Directory for guidance.

47:  How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?

  Emacs 19 comes with paren.el, which (when loaded) will automatically
  highlight matching parentheses whenever point (i.e., the cursor) is
  located over one.  To load paren automatically, include the line

    (require 'paren)

  in your .emacs file.

  Alternatives to paren include:

  * If you're looking at a right parenthesis (or brace or bracket) you can
    delete it and reinsert it.  Emacs will blink the cursor on the matching
    parenthesis.

  * M-C-f (forward-sexp) and M-C-b (backward-sexp) will skip over one set
    of balanced parentheses, so you can see which parentheses match.  (You
    can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time
    by modifying the syntax table.)

  * Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching
    parenthesis, like in vi.  In addition, if the cursor isn't over a
    parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal.

      ;; By an unknown contributor

      (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren)

      (defun match-paren (arg)
        "Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %."
        (interactive "p")
        (cond ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1) (backward-char 1))
              ((looking-at "\\s\)") (forward-char 1) (backward-list 1))
              (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1)))))

48:  In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef
     commands are handled by the compiler?

  M-x hide-ifdef-mode.  (This is a minor mode.)  You might also want to try
  cpp.el, available at the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 87).

49:  Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?

  (`.' is the redo command in vi.  It redoes the last insertion/deletion.)

  No, not really, because Emacs doesn't have a special insertion mode.

  You can type "C-x ESC ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke commands
  that used the minibuffer to get arguments.  In repeat-complex-command you
  can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the different complex commands
  you've typed.

  To repeat a set of commands, use keyboard macros.  (See "Keyboard Macros"
  in the on-line manual.)

  If you're really desperate for the `.' command, vip-mode, which comes
  with Emacs 19, appears to support it.  (Vi-mode, another vi emulator that
  comes with Emacs 19, does not appear to support `.'.)

50:  What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?

  See Emacs man page, or "Resources X" in the on-line manual.

  You can also use a resource editor, such as editres (for X11R5 and
  onwards), to look at the resource names for the menu bar, assuming Emacs
  was compiled with the X toolkit.

51:  How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code?

  There are a number of ways to execute ("evaluate," in Lisp lingo) an
  Emacs Lisp "form":

  * If you want it evaluated every time you run Emacs, put it in a file
    named ".emacs" in your home directory.  This is known as your ".emacs
    file," and contains all of your personal customizations.

  * You can type the form in the *scratch* buffer, and then type LFD (or
    C-j) after it.  The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in
    the buffer.

  * In Emacs-Lisp mode, typing M-C-x evaluates a top-level form before or
    around point.

  * Typing "C-x C-e" in any buffer evaluates the Lisp form immediately
    before point and prints its value in the echo area.

  * Typing M-ESC or M-x eval-expression allows you to type a Lisp form in
    the minibuffer which will be evaluated.

  * You can use M-x load-file to have Emacs evaluate all the Lisp forms in
    a file.  (To do this from Lisp use the function "load" instead.)

  These functions are also useful (see question 16 if you want to learn
  more about them):

    load-library, eval-region, eval-current-buffer, require, autoload

52:  How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?

  Set the variable default-tab-width.  For example, to set tab stops every
  10 characters, insert the following in your .emacs file:

    (setq default-tab-width 10)

  Do not confuse variable tab-width with variable tab-stop-list.  The
  former is used for the display of literal tab characters.  The latter
  controls what characters are inserted when you press the TAB character in
  certain modes.

53:  How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?

  To do this to an entire buffer, type "M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET >
  RET".

  To do this to a region, use "string-rectangle" ("C-x r t").  Set the mark
  (`C-SPC') at the beginning of the first line you want to prefix, move the
  cursor to last line to be prefixed, and type "C-x r t > RET".  To do this
  for the whole buffer, type "C-x h C-x r t > RET".

  If you are trying to prefix a yanked mail message with '>', you might
  want to set the variable mail-yank-prefix.  Better yet, get the SuperCite
  package (see question 103), which provides flexible citation for yanked
  mail and news messages.

54:  How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
     underlined paragraph?

  M-x underline-region.

55:  How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?

  Use "C-x (" and "C-x )" to make a keyboard macro that invokes the command
  and then type "M-0 C-x e".

  WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be
  suppressed.

56:  How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor
     should stay in the same column even if the line is too short?

  M-x picture-mode.

57:  How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?

  "C-z" iconifies Emacs when running under X Windows and suspends Emacs
  otherwise.  See "Misc X" in the on-line manual.

58:  How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?

  See "Regexps" in the on-line manual.

  WARNING: The "or" operator is `\|', not `|', and the grouping operators
  are `\(' and `\)'.  Also, the string syntax for a backslash is `\\'.  To
  specify a regular expression like xxx\(foo\|bar\) in a Lisp string, use

     "xxx\\(foo\\|bar\\)"

  Notice the doubled backslashes!

  WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set
  ([^...])  can match a newline character (LFD aka C-j aka \n), unless
  newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match.

  WARNING: The character syntax regexps (e.g., "\sw") are not meaningful
  inside character set regexps (e.g., "[aeiou]").  (This is actually
  typical for regexp syntax.)

59:  How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?

  The "tags" feature of Emacs includes the command tags-query-replace which
  performs a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the TAGS file.
  See "Tags Search" in the on-line manual.

  In addition, Martin Boyer has written a package named global-replace
  which will perform a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the
  *compilation* buffer (usually done after a "grep"), which is available
  from:

    ftp://ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca/pub/emacs/lisp/compile.el.z
    ftp://ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca/pub/emacs/lisp/global-replace.el.z
    ftp://ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca/pub/emacs/lisp/query.el.z

  NOTE: These files are compressed using GNU zip ("gzip"); you can get a
  copy from gzip from prep and its mirrors (see question 89).

60:  Where is the documentation for "etags"?

  The "etags" man page should be in the same place as the "emacs" man page.

  Quick command-line switch descriptions are also available.  For example,
  "etags -H".

61:  How do I disable backup files?

  You probably don't want to do this, since backups are useful.

  To avoid seeing backup files (and other "uninteresting" files) in Dired,
  load dired-x by adding the following to your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'dired-load-hook
              (function (lambda ()
                          (load "dired-x"))))

  With dired-x loaded, `M-o' toggles omitting in each dired buffer.  You
  can make omitting the default for new dired buffers by putting the
  following in your .emacs:

    (setq initial-dired-omit-files-p t)

  If you're tired of seeing backup files whenever you do an "ls" at the
  Unix shell, try GNU ls with the "-B" option.  GNU ls is part of the GNU
  fileutils package, available at prep and its mirrors (see question 89).

  To disable or change how backups are made, see "Backup Names" in the
  on-line manual.

62:  How do I disable auto-save-mode?

  You probably don't want to do this, since auto-saving is useful,
  especially when Emacs or your computer crashes while you are editing a
  document.

  Instead, you might want to change the variable auto-save-interval, which
  specifies how many keystrokes Emacs waits before auto-saving.  Increasing
  this value forces Emacs to wait longer between auto-saves, which might
  annoy you less.

  You might also want to look into Sebastian Kremer's auto-save package,
  available from the Lisp Code Archive (see question 87).  This package
  also allows you to place all auto-save files in one directory, such as
  /tmp.

  To disable or change how auto-save-mode works, see "Auto Save" in the
  on-line manual.

63:  How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options?

  Pull-down menus are a new feature in Emacs 19, and are available only
  when Emacs runs directly under a window system.  (Thus Emacs run under X
  Windows can display pull-down menus, but Emacs run inside an xterm
  cannot.)

  Each menu title (e.g., Buffers, File, Edit) represents a local or global
  keymap.  Selecting a menu title with the mouse displays that keymap's
  non-nil contents in the form of a menu.

  So to add a menu option to an existing menu, all you have to do is add a
  new definition to the appropriate keymap.  Adding a "forward word"
  command to the "Edit" menu thus requires the following Lisp code:

    (define-key global-map
      [menu-bar edit forward]
      '("Forward word" . forward-word))

  The first line adds the entry to the global keymap, which includes global
  menu bar entries.  Replacing the reference to "global-map" with a local
  keymap would add this menu option only within a particular mode.

  The second line describes the path from the menu-bar to the new entry.
  Placing this menu entry underneath the "File" menu would mean changing
  the word "edit" in the second line to "file."

  The third line is a cons cell whose first element is the title that will
  be displayed, and whose second element is the function that will be
  called when that menu option is invoked.

  To add a new menu, rather than a new option to an existing menu, we must
  define an entirely new keymap:

    (define-key global-map [menu-bar words]
      (cons "Words" (make-sparse-keymap "Words")))

  The above code creates a new sparse keymap, gives it the name "Words",
  and attaches it to the global menu bar.  Adding the "forward word"
  command to this new menu would thus require the following code:

    (define-key global-map
      [menu-bar words forward]
      '("Forward word" . forward-word))

  Note that because of the way keymaps work, menu options are displayed
  with the more recently defined items at the top.  Thus if you were to
  define menu options "foo", "bar", and "baz" (in that order), menu option
  "baz" would appear at the top, and "foo" would be at the bottom.

  One way to avoid this problem is to use the function define-key-after,
  which works the same as define-key, but lets you modify where items
  appear.  The following Lisp code would insert the "forward word" function
  in the "edit" menu immediately following the "undo" option:

    (define-key-after
      (lookup-key global-map [menu-bar edit])
      [forward]
      '("Forward word" . forward-word)
      'undo)

  Note how the second and third arguments to define-key-after are different
  from those of define-key, and that we have added a new (final) argument,
  the function after which our new key should be defined.

  To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate
  define-key-after with the appropriate final argument.

  More detailed information -- and more examples of how to create and
  modify menu options -- are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under
  "Keymaps."  (See question 16 for information on this manual.)

64:  How do I delete menus and menu options?

  The simplest way to remove a menu is to set its keymap to nil.  For
  example, to delete the "Words" menu (from question 63), use:

    (define-key global-map [menu-bar words] nil)

  Similarly, removing a menu option requires redefining a keymap entry to
  nil.  For example, to delete the "Forward word" menu option from the
  "Edit" menu (we added it in question 63), use:

    (define-key global-map [menu-bar edit forward] nil)

65:  What are hilit19 and font-lock modes, what is the difference between
     them, and how do I customize them?

  Hilit19 and font-lock are two minor modes that syntactically highlight
  Emacs buffers using colors and fonts of your choosing.  This is
  especially useful when editing code, since strings can be in one face,
  comments a second color, and function definitions a third.  Both packages
  come with Emacs 19.

  Hilit19 is slower than font-lock mode, but is easier to customize and has
  regexps for more major modes.  To invoke hilit19 automatically whenever
  you start Emacs, include the following Lisp forms (stolen from the
  documentation at the top of hilit19.el, which should be in your lisp
  directory) in your .emacs file:

    (cond (window-system
           (setq hilit-mode-enable-list  '(not text-mode)
                 hilit-background-mode   'light
                 hilit-inhibit-hooks     nil
                 hilit-inhibit-rebinding nil)
           (require 'hilit19)))

  Note that hilit-background-mode should be set to 'dark (and not 'light)
  if your Emacs window has a dark background.

  Changing the default hilit19 face specifications requires the use of
  hilit-translate.  See the comments at the top of hilit19.el for some
  examples of how to use hilit-translate, as well as for some basic
  instructions.

  Font-lock is faster than hilit19, but comes with fewer predefined regexps
  and supports fewer major modes.  To enable font-lock for a particular
  mode, you will need to use the hook for that mode.  For example, to turn
  on font-lock mode every time you load an Emacs Lisp file, add the
  following to your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook '(lambda () (font-lock-mode 1)))

  Customization of font-lock mode is done by setting the variables
  font-lock-comment-face, font-lock-string-face, font-lock-doc-string-face,
  and font-lock-function-name-face.  You may define new reserved words by
  modifying the variable font-lock-keywords.

  If you want to use hilit19 for some modes and font-lock for others, you
  can use the variable hilit-mode-enable-list.  See the documentation for
  that variable (using M-x describe-variable) for instructions on how to
  set it.

  You might also want to look at Simon Marshall's face-lock package, which
  handles fontification and provides an easier interface to font-lock.  You
  can get face-lock from the Emacs Lisp Archive; see question 87.

66:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
     bottom of the screen?

  Place the following Lisp form in your .emacs file:

    (setq scroll-step 1)

  Also see "Scrolling" in the on-line manual.

67:  How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?

  Use delete-selection mode, which you can start automatically by placing
  the following Lisp form in your .emacs file:

    (delete-selection-mode t)

  According to the documentation string for delete-selection mode (which
  you can read using M-x describe-function RET delete-selection-mode RET):

    When ON, typed text replaces the selection if the selection is active.
    When OFF, typed text is just inserted at point.

  This mode also allows you to delete (not kill) the highlighted region by
  pressing DEL.

68:  How can I edit MS-DOS files using Emacs?

  Get crypt++ from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 87).  Among other
  things, crypt++ transparently modifies MS-DOS files as they are loaded
  and saved, allowing you to ignore the different conventions that Unix and
  MS-DOS have for delineating the end of a line.

Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part3

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 110), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------



Bugs/Problems

69:  Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?

  On 64-bit machines, Emacs has no problem editing very large files.  RMS
  says that modifications to make larger files editable by default are
  underway for a future version of Emacs.

  Until then, most installed versions of Emacs will use 24-bit signed
  integers (and 24-bit pointers) internally.  This limits the file size
  that Emacs can handle to 8,388,607 bytes (2^23 - 1).

  Leonard N. Zubkoff <[e-mail]> suggests putting the following two
  lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs to allow for 26-bit integers
  and pointers (and thus file sizes of up to 33,554,431 bytes):

    #define VALBITS 26
    #define GCTYPEBITS 5

  WARNING: This method may result in "ILLEGAL DATATYPE" and other random
  errors on some machines.

  David Gillespie <[e-mail]> gives an explanation of why
  Emacs uses 24 bit integers and pointers:

    Emacs is largely written in a dialect of Lisp; Lisp is a freely-typed
    language in the sense that you can put any value of any type into any
    variable, or return it from a function, and so on.  So each value must
    carry a "tag" along with it identifying what kind of thing it is, e.g.,
    integer, pointer to a list, pointer to an editing buffer, and so on.
    Emacs uses standard 32-bit integers for data objects, taking the top 8
    bits for the tag and the bottom 24 bits for the value.  So integers
    (and pointers) are somewhat restricted compared to true C integers and
    pointers.

    Emacs uses 8-bit tags because that's a little faster on byte-oriented
    machines, but there are only really enough tags to require 6 bits.

70:  How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my shell buffer?

  Try typing "M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m RET" while in shell-mode to make them
  go away.  If that doesn't work, you have several options:

  For tcsh, put this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:

    if ($?EMACS) then
        if ("$EMACS" == t) then
            if ($?tcsh) unset edit
            stty nl
        endif
    endif

  Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file:

    unset edit
    stty nl

  Alternatively, use csh in your shell buffers instead of tcsh.  One way
  is:

    (setq explicit-shell-file-name "/bin/csh")

  and another is to do this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:

    setenv ESHELL /bin/csh

  (You must start Emacs over again with the environment variable properly
  set for this to take effect.)

  You can also set the ESHELL environment variable in Emacs Lisp with
  the following Lisp form,

    (setenv "ESHELL" "/bin/csh")

71:  Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"?

  The most likely reason for this message is that the "env" program is not
  properly installed.  Compile this program for your architecture, and
  install it with a+x permission in the architecture-dependent Emacs
  program directory.  (You can find what this directory is at your site by
  inspecting the value of the variable exec-directory by typing "C-h v
  exec-directory RET".)

  You should also check for other programs named "env" in your path (e.g.,
  SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env).  We don't understand why this
  can cause a failure and don't know a general solution for working around
  the problem in this case.

  The "make clean" command will remove "env" and other vital programs, so
  be careful when using it.

  It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started
  as an X client from an xterm window (i.e., had a controlling tty) but the
  xterm was later terminated.

  See also PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs
  source) for other possible causes of this message.

72:  Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?

  The termcap entry for terminal type "emacs" is ordinarily put in the
  TERMCAP environment variable of subshells.  It may help in certain
  situations (e.g., using rlogin from shell buffer) to add an entry for
  "emacs" to the system-wide termcap file.  Here is a correct termcap entry
  for "emacs":

    emacs:tc=unknown:

  To make a terminfo entry for "emacs", use "tic" or "captoinfo."  You need
  to generate /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs.  It may work to simply copy
  /usr/lib/terminfo/d/dumb to /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs.

  Having a termcap/terminfo entry will not enable the use of full screen
  programs in shell buffers.  Use M-x terminal-emulator for that instead.

  A workaround to the problem of missing termcap/terminfo entries is to
  change terminal type "emacs" to type "dumb" or "unknown" in your shell
  start up file.  "csh" users could put this in their .cshrc files:

    if ("$term" == emacs) set term=dumb

73:  Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping?

  Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
  sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
  characters and interpreting them as commands.  (The C-s character
  normally invokes the isearch-forward command.)  For possible solutions,
  see question 119.

74:  Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?

  The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of
  gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine.  This is
  often manifested as a message on startup of "X server not responding.
  Check your DISPLAY environment variable." or a message of "Unknown host"
  from open-network-stream.

  On a Sun, this may be because Emacs had to be linked with the static C
  library.  The version of gethostbyname in the static C library may only
  look in /etc/hosts and the NIS (YP) maps, while the version in the
  dynamic C library may be smart enough to check DNS in addition to or
  instead of NIS.  On a Motorola Delta running System V R3.6, the version
  of gethostbyname in the standard library works, but the one that works
  with NIS doesn't (the one you get with -linet).  Other operating systems
  have similar problems.

  Try these options:

  * Explicitly add the host you want to communicate with to /etc/hosts.

  * Relink Emacs with this line in src/config.h:

      #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv

  * Replace gethostbyname and friends in libc.a with more useful versions
    such as the ones in libresolv.a.  Then relink Emacs.

  * If you are actually running NIS, make sure that "ypbind" is properly
    told to do DNS lookups with the correct command line switch.

  * Use tcp.el and tcp.c from Gnus.  This has the additional advantage that
    you can use numeric IP addresses instead of names.  open-network-stream
    currently can't handle numeric addresses.  Brian Thomson
    <[e-mail]> has a enhancement to open-network-stream to
    allow it to handle numeric addresses.

75:  Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"?

  An error occurred while loading either your .emacs file or the
  system-wide lisp/default.el file.  For information on how to debug your
  .emacs file, see question 27.

  It may be the case that you need to load some package first, or use a
  hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded.  A common case
  of this is explained in question 115.

76:  Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?

  As of version 19, Emacs searches for X resources in the files specified
  by the XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment
  variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written using
  Xt.

  XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names
  separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names
  separated by colons.

  Emacs searches for X resources

    + specified on the command line, with the "-xrm RESOURCESTRING"
      option,
    + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable,
      - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it
        exists
        (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on),
    + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties
      provided by the server,
      - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults
        if it exists,
    + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
      - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
        (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if
        the LANG environment variable is set,
      - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
      - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set),
      - or in ~/Emacs,
    + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH.

77:  Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?

  The usual cause is that the master lock file, "!!!SuperLock!!!" has been
  left in the lock directory somehow.  Delete it.

  Mark Meuer <[e-mail]> says that NeXT NFS has a bug where an
  exclusive create succeeds but returns an error status.  This can cause
  the same problem.  Since Emacs's file locking doesn't work over NFS
  anyway, the best solution is to recompile Emacs with CLASH_DETECTION
  undefined.

78:  How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name?

  When entering a filename in the minibuffer, Emacs will attempt to expand
  a `$' followed by a word as an environment variable.  To suppress this
  behavior, type "$$" instead.

79:  Why does shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?

  Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its
  directory.  This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix.  So it tries to
  guess by recognizing "cd" commands.  If you type "cd" followed by a
  directory name with a variable reference ("cd $HOME/bin") or with a shell
  metacharacter ("cd ../lib*"), Emacs will fail to correctly guess the
  shell's new current directory.  A huge variety of fixes and enhancements
  to shell mode for this problem have been written to handle this problem.
  Check the Lisp Code Directory (see question 86).

  You can tell Emacs the shell's current directory with the command "M-x
  dirs".

80:  Are there any security risks in Emacs?

  * the "movemail" incident (No, this is not a risk.)

    In his book "The Cuckoo's Egg," Cliff Stoll describes this in chapter
    4.  The site at LBL had installed the "etc/movemail" program setuid
    root.  (As of version 19, movemail is in your architecture-specific
    directory; type "C-h v exec-directory RET" to see what it is.)  Since
    "movemail" had not been designed for this situation, a security hole
    was created and users could get root privileges.

    "movemail" has since been changed so that even if it is installed
    setuid root this security hole will not be a result.

    We have heard unverified reports that the 1988 Internet worm took
    advantage of this configuration problem.

  * the file-local-variable feature (Yes, a risk, but easy to change.)

    There is an Emacs feature that allows the setting of local values for
    variables when editing a file by including specially formatted text
    near the end of the file.  This feature also includes the ability to
    have arbitrary Emacs Lisp code evaluated when the file is visited.
    Obviously, there is a potential for Trojan horses to exploit this
    feature.

    Emacs 18 allowed this feature by default; users could disable it by
    setting the variable inhibit-local-variables to a non-nil value.

    As of Emacs 19, the opposite is true: Emacs disallows file variable by
    default, and users must explicitly enable them by setting the variable
    enable-local-variables to a non-nil value.

    For more information, see "File Variables" in the on-line manual.

  * synthetic X events (Yes, a risk; use MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 or better.)

    Emacs accepts synthetic X events generated by the SendEvent request as
    though they were regular events.  As a result, if you are using the
    trivial host-based authentication, other users who can open X
    connections to your X workstation can make your Emacs process do
    anything, including run other processes with your privileges.

    The only fix for this is to prevent other users from being able to open
    X connections.  The standard way to prevent this is to use a real
    authentication mechanism, such as MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1.  If using the
    "xauth" program has any effect, then you are probably using
    MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1.  Your site may be using a superior authentication
    method; ask your system administrator.

    If real authentication is not a possibility, you may be satisfied by
    just allowing hosts access for brief intervals while you start your X
    programs, then removing the access.  This reduces the risk somewhat by
    narrowing the time window when hostile users would have access, but
    DOES NOT ELIMINATE THE RISK.

    On most computers running Unix and X Windows, you enable and disable
    access using the "xhost" command.  To allow all hosts access to your X
    server, use

      xhost +

    at the shell prompt, which (on an HP machine, at least) produces the
    following message:

      access control disabled, clients can connect from any host

    To deny all hosts access to your X server (except those explicitly
    allowed by name), use

      xhost -

    On the test HP computer, this command generated the following message:

      access control enabled, only authorized clients can connect


Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs

81:  How do I install Emacs?

  This answer is meant for users of Unix and Unix-like systems.  Users of
  other operating systems should see the series of questions beginning with
  question 91, which describe where to get non-Unix source and binaries.
  These packages should come with installation instructions.

  For Unix and Unix-like systems, the easiest way is often to compile it
  from scratch.  You will need:

  * Emacs sources.  See question 89 for a list of ftp sites that make them
    available.  On prep.ai.mit.edu, the main GNU distribution site, sources
    are available at

      ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/emacs-19.28.tar.gz

    The above will obviously change as new versions of Emacs come out.  For
    instance, when Emacs 19.29 is released, it will most probably be
    available at

      ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/emacs-19.29.tar.gz

    Again, you should use one of the mirror sites in question 89 (and
    adjust the URL accordingly) so as to reduce load on prep.

  * Gzip, the GNU compression utility.  You can get gzip via anonymous ftp
    at prep and its mirror sites; it should compile and install without
    much trouble on most systems.  Once you have retrieved the Emacs
    sources, you will probably be able to uncompress them with the command

      gunzip --verbose emacs-19.28.tar.gz

    changing the Emacs version (19.28), as necessary.  Once gunzip has
    finished doing its job, a file by the name of "emacs-19.28.tar" should
    be in your build directory.

  * Tar, the "tape archiving" program, which moves multiple files into and
    out of archive files, or "tarfiles."  All of the files comprising the
    Emacs source come in a single tarfile, and must be extracted using tar
    before you can build Emacs.  Typically, the extraction command would
    look like

      tar -xvvf emacs-19.28.tar

    The `x' indicates that we want to extract files from this tarfile, the
    two `v's force verbose output, and the `f' tells tar to use a disk
    file, rather than one on tape.

    If you're using GNU tar (available at prep and its mirrors), you can
    combine this step and the previous one by using the command

      tar -zxvvf emacs-19.28.tar.gz

    The additional `z' at the beginning of the options list tells GNU tar
    to uncompress the file with gunzip before extracting the tarfile's
    components.

  At this point, the Emacs sources (all 25+ megabytes of them) should be
  sitting in a directory called "emacs-19.28".  On most common Unix and
  Unix-like systems, you should be able to compile Emacs (with X Windows
  support) with the following commands:

    cd emacs-19.28      [ change directory to emacs-19.28 ]
    ./configure         [ configure Emacs for your particular system ]
    make                [ use Makefile to build components, then Emacs ]

  If the "make" completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that the
  build has gone well.  (See question 83 if you weren't successful.)

  To install Emacs in its default directories of /usr/local/bin (binaries),
  /usr/local/lib/emacs/19.xx (Lisp code and support files), and
  /usr/local/info (Info documentation), become the super-user and type

    make install

  Note that "make install" will overwrite /usr/local/bin/emacs and any
  Emacs Info files that might be in /usr/local/info.

  Much more verbose instructions (with many more hints and suggestions)
  come with the Emacs sources, in the file "INSTALL".

82:  How do I update Emacs to the latest version?

  Follow the instructions in question 81.

  Emacs 19 places nearly everything in version-specific directories (e.g.,
  /usr/local/lib/emacs/19.28), so the only files that can be overwritten
  when installing a new release are /usr/local/bin/emacs and the Emacs Info
  documentation in /usr/local/info.  Back up these files before you install
  a new release, and you shouldn't have too much trouble.

83:  What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?

  First look in the file PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you
  unpack the Emacs source) to see if there is already a solution for your
  problem.  Next, look for other questions in this FAQ that have to do with
  Emacs installation and compilation problems.

  If you'd like to have someone look at your problem and help solve it, see
  question 21.

  If you don't find a solution, then report your problem via e-mail to
  [e-mail].  Please do not post it to gnu.emacs.help
  or e-mail it to [e-mail].  For further guidelines,
  see question 10.

84:  Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?

  Emacs needs to be linked with the static version of the X11 library,
  libX11.a.  This may be missing.

  Under OpenWindows, you may need to use "add_services" to add the
  "OpenWindows Programmers" optional software category from the CD-ROM.

  Under HP-UX 8.0, you may need to run "update" again to load the X11-PRG
  "fileset".  This may be missing even if you specified "all filesets" the
  first time.  If libcurses.a is missing, you may need to load the
  "Berkeley Development Option."

  David Zuhn <[e-mail]> says that MIT X builds shared libraries by
  default, and only shared libraries, on those platforms that support them.
  These shared libraries can't be used when undumping temacs (the last
  stage of the Emacs build process).  To get regular libraries in addition
  to shared libraries, add this to site.cf:

      #define ForceNormalLib YES

  Other systems may have similar problems.  You can always define
  CANNOT_DUMP and link with the shared libraries instead.

  To get the Xmenu stuff to work, you need to find a copy of MIT's
  liboldX.a.


Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages

85:  Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?

  Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
  archive sites and etc/ORDERS for mail orders.  If you don't already have
  Emacs, see question 20 for how to get these files.

  See question 81 for information on how to obtain and build the latest
  version of Emacs, and question 89 for a list of archive sites that make
  GNU software available.

86:  How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?

  First of all, you should check to make sure that the package isn't
  already available.  For example, typing "M-x apropos RET wordstar RET"
  lists all functions and variables containing the string "wordstar".

  It is also possible that the package is on your system, but has not been
  loaded.  To see which packages are available for loading, look through
  your computer's lisp directory (see question 4).  The Lisp source to most
  most packages contains a short description of how they should be loaded,
  invoked, and configured -- so before you use or modify a Lisp package,
  see if the author has provided any hints in the source code.

  If a package does not come with Emacs, check the Lisp Code Directory,
  maintained by Dave Brennan <[e-mail]>.  The directory is contained
  in the file LCD-datafile.Z, available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see
  question 87), and is accessed using the "lispdir" package, available from
  the same site.  Note that lispdir.el requires crypt++, which you can grab
  from the Emacs Lisp Archive's "misc" subdirectory when you get
  lispdir.el.

  Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, you can use "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos" to search the listing.  For example, "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces this output:

              GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory Apropos -- "ange-ftp"
     "~/" refers to archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/

          ange-ftp (4.18)       15-Jul-1992
               Andy Norman, <[e-mail]>
               ~/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z
               transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs
          auto-save (1.19)      01-May-1992
               Sebastian Kremer, <[e-mail]>
               ~/misc/auto-save.el.Z
               Safer autosaving with support for ange-ftp and /tmp
          ftp-quik (1.0)        28-Jul-1993
               Terrence Brannon, <[e-mail]>
               ~/modes/ftp-quik.el.Z
               Quik access to dired'ing of ange-ftp and normal paths

  You actually don't need this the directory file if your computer is on
  the Internet, since the latest version is retrieved automatically the
  first time you type "M-x lisp-dir-apropos" in a particular Emacs session.
  If you would prefer to use a local copy of LCD-datafile, be sure to set
  the variable lisp-code-directory at the top of the lispdir.el source
  code.

  A version of the LCD is also available on the World-Wide Web at

    http://www.cs.indiana.edu/LCD/cover.html

87:  Where can I get Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?

  First, check the Lisp Code Directory to find the name of the package you
  are looking for (see question 86).  Next, check local archives and the
  Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files.  If you still
  haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for a copy.
  If you find Emacs Lisp code that doesn't appear in the LCD, please submit
  a copy to the LCD (see question 88).

   You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive at the following sites:

    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
    ftp://calypso-2.oit.unc.edu/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.diku.dk/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.uu.net/packages/gnu/emacs-lisp/
    ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU/elisp-archive/
    ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
    ftp://nic.switch.ch/mirror/elisp-archive/
    ftp://quepasa.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/gnu/elisp/
    ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/gnu/EmacsBits/elisp-archive/

  Retrieve and read the file README first.

  NOTE: * The archive maintainers do not have time to answer individual
          requests for packages or the list of packages in the archive.  If
          you cannot use FTP or UUCP to access the archive yourself, try to
          find a friend who can, but please don't ask the maintainers.

        * Any files with names ending in ".Z", ".z", or ".gz" are
          compressed, so you should use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve
          them.  You should also use binary mode whenever you retrieve any
          files with names ending in ".elc".

88:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?

  Guidelines and procedures for submission to the archive can be found in
  the file GUIDELINES in the archive directory (see question 87).  It
  covers documentation, copyrights, packaging, submission, and the Lisp
  Code Directory Record.  Anonymous FTP uploads are not permitted.
  Instead, all submissions are mailed to [e-mail].
  The lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will
  help you with this.

89:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?

  The most up-to-date official GNU software is normally kept on
  prep.ai.mit.edu and is available at

    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu

  Read the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information.

  The following sites are all mirror images of the GNU distribution area:

    ASIA: ftp://cair.kaist.ac.kr/pub/gnu,
          ftp://ftp.nectec.or.th/pub/mirrors/gnu,
          ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ftpsync/prep,
          ftp://ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp/pub/gnu

    AUSTRALIA: ftp://archie.au/gnu (archie.oz or archie.oz.au for ACSnet)

    AFRICA: ftp://ftp.sun.ac.za/pub/gnu

    MIDDLE-EAST: ftp://ftp.technion.ac.il/pub/unsupported/gnu

    EUROPE: ftp://ftp.denet.dk/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/comp/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/unix/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.stacken.kth.se/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/gnu,
            ftp://isy.liu.se/pub/gnu,
            ftp://nic.switch.ch/mirror/gnu,
            ftp://archive.eu.net/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.eunet.ch/software/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.ieunet.ie/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.mcc.ac.uk/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.sunet.se:/pub/gnu,
            ftp://ftp.univ-lyon1.fr/pub/gnu,
            ftp://irisa.irisa.fr/pub/gnu,
            ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/gnu,
            ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/pub/uunet/systems/gnu

    SOUTH AMERICA: ftp.unicamp.br:/pub/gnu

    WESTERN CANADA: ftp.cs.ubc.ca:/mirror2/gnu

    USA: ftp://col.hp.com/mirrors/gnu,
         ftp://f.ms.uky.edu/pub3/gnu,
         ftp://ftp.cs.columbia.edu/archives/gnu/prep,
         ftp://ftp.digex.net/pub/gnu,
         ftp://ftp.hawaii.edu/mirrors/gnu,
         ftp://ftp.kpc.com/pub/mirror/gnu,
         ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/gnu,
         ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU,
         ftp://jaguar.utah.edu/gnustuff,
         ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://vixen.cso.uiuc.edu/gnu,
         ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/gnu

  The directory at ftp.uu.net is a mirror of prep except that files larger
  than one megabyte are split into multiple parts.  If you have trouble
  transferring large files, you should try that site.  A file normally
  named "XXX" is split into files XXX-split/part[0-9][0-9], and there will
  be a file named XXX-split/README which contains the list of parts
  (especially helpful when FTP-ing by e-mail), their checksums, and
  reassembly instructions.

90:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?

  First of all, they're both GNU Emacs.  XEmacs is just as much a later
  version of GNU Emacs 18 as the FSF-distributed version.  This FAQ refers
  to the latest version to be distributed by the FSF as "Emacs," partly
  because the XEmacs maintainers now refer to their product using the
  "XEmacs" name, and partly because there isn't any accurate way to
  differentiate between the two without getting mired in paragraphs of
  legalese and history.

  XEmacs, which began life as Lucid Emacs, is based on an early version of
  Emacs 19 and Epoch, an X-aware version of Emacs 18.

  Emacs (i.e., the version distributed by the FSF) has a larger installed
  base and supports character terminals, while XEmacs can do some clever
  tricks with X Windows, such as putting arbitrary graphics in a buffer.
  Emacs and XEmacs each come with Lisp packages that are lacking in the
  other; RMS says that the FSF would include more packages that come with
  XEmacs, but that the XEmacs maintainers don't always keep track of the
  authors of contributed code, which makes it impossible for the FSF to
  have certain legal papers signed.  (Without these legal papers, the FSF
  will not distribute Lisp packages with Emacs.)

  Many XEmacs features have found their way into recent versions of Emacs,
  and more features can be expected in the future, but there are still many
  differences between the two packages.

  The latest version of XEmacs as of this writing is 19.11; you can get it
  at

    ftp://ftp.cs.uiuc.edu/pub/xemacs/xemacs-19.11.tar.gz

  More information about XEmacs, including a list of frequently asked
  questions (FAQ), is available at

    http://xemacs.cs.uiuc.edu/

91:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?

  Emacs 19 (versions 19.23 and later) should compile right out of the box
  on PCs with a 386 or better, running MS-DOS 3.0 or later. You will need
  the following:

  Compiler: djgpp version 1.11 maint 4 or later.  You can get the latest
            version by grabbing everything you see at:

            ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/msdos/djgpp

  Tar:  One DOS version of tar is available at

        ftp://ftp.urc.tue.nl/pub/unixtools/dos

        However, not all DOS versions of tar work equally well, so you
        might have to try others if this one gives you trouble.  The
        versions known as tar4dos.zip and ltarv3.zip are also supposed to
        work, as well.

  Utilities: chmod, make, mv, sed, rm.

             All of these utilities are available at:

               ftp://ftp.iro.umontreal.ca/pub/Internet/gnuish

             You should grab the files futil4ax.zoo (contains chmod.exe,
             mv.exe, and rm.exe), sed106ax.zoo (contains sed.exe), and
             gzip07ax.zoo (contains gzip.exe).

  The file etc/MSDOS contains some information on the differences between
  the Unix and MS-DOS versions of Emacs.

  If you would prefer not to compile Emacs by yourself, you can get
  binaries for Emacs 19.24 at

      ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/editors/emacs19.24
      ftp://ftp.imada.ou.dk/pub/mirrors/msdos/emacs-19.24

  Some useful information on the MS-DOS version of Emacs is available at

    http://www.diku.dk/~terra/emacs.html

  OEmacs (see question 92) also runs under MS-DOS.

  For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs
  look-alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature,"
  available at

    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs

  Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they often
  lack certain features, such as the Emacs Lisp extension language.

92:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows?

  * GNU Emacs

    Emacs is alleged to run under Windows in a DOS box.

  * OEmacs

    OEmacs 4.1 is a port of Emacs 19.19 that was written as a successor to
    DEmacs (a DOS port of Emacs 18).  It runs in text mode under MS-DOS, in
    a DOS box under Windows 3.1, and as a native X11 application under
    DESQview/X.  OEmacs supports color, the mouse, and many other features.
    It complies with the GPL.  Get it from any site that mirrors SIMTEL20's
    MS-DOS collection, including ftp://oak.oakland.edu//pub/msdos/oemacs/.

  * Win-Emacs

    Win-Emacs 1.35 is a port by Pearl Software <[e-mail]> of
    Lucid Emacs 19.6 which runs as a Windows application under Windows 3.1
    and Windows NT.  It supports Windows features such as DDE, winsock, and
    drag-and-drop.  Win-Emacs itself is free software, and is available at

      ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/pearl/

    However, you will need an X Windows emulator for Microsoft Windows in
    order to run Win-Emacs; Pearl Software just happens to sell a non-free
    version of such an emulator.  (In other words, Win-Emacs itself is
    free, but requires the use of proprietary software.)  Whether this is
    appropriate or acceptable under the terms of the GNU General Public
    License has been debated extensively; see question 7.

93:  Where can I get Emacs for Windows NT?

  * Congruent's NTEmacs

    Conguent Corporation's Windows NT port of Emacs 19.16, "ntemacs.exe",
    can be found in microlib.cc.utexas.edu:/microlib/nt/gnu/gnubin.tar.Z.
    Congruent sells support and can be reached at [phone].

  * Voelker's NTEmacs

    NTEmacs is a port of Emacs 19.17 to Windows NT which is maintained by
    Geoff Voelker <[e-mail]>.  It is known to run on Intel
    x86, MIPS R4000, DEC Alpha AXP, and PowerPC architectures.  While it
    doesn't use native NT windowing, it does support processes, the mouse,
    and most other features of Emacs.

    You can get a copy of NTEmacs from

      ftp://cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/

    A beta test version of Emacs 19.27 ported to Windows NT is available
    from june.cs.washington.edu:pub/voelker/trial and will be incorporated
    in a future release of Emacs.

94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?

  Emacs 19.27 is ported for emx on OS/2 2.0 or 2.1, and is available at:

    ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/32bit/unix/emacs27
    ftp://ftp.cdrom.com:/pub/os2/32bit/unix/emacs27

95:  Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?

  GNU Emacs 18 is available for the Atari ST running MiNT. It can be found
  at

    http://www.umich.edu/group/itd/archive/Public/html/atari/Editors/Emacs-1858/

96:  Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?

  Amiga software is available through Aminet, a set of interconnected FTP
  sites and other file accessing services for Amiga software.  The primary
  sites for Aminet are ftp.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) and ftp.cdrom.com
  (192.153.46.2).  In the directory pub/aminet/util/gnu, there are

        a1.26-emacs-bin.lha -- Amiga GNU Emacs V1.26, binaries
        a1.26-emacs-src.lha -- Amiga GNU Emacs V1.26, sources

  There are also quite a few Emacs related files/programs.  Please search
  the index of Aminet.

  David Gilbert <[e-mail]> recently announced
  the availability of a beta release of Emacs 19.25 for the Amiga.  You can
  get the binary at

    ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/utils/gnu/a2.0bEmacs-bin.LHA

  We have no access to an Amiga, so please send in your experience and
  comments on the implementation.

97:  Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?

  Emacs.app is a NeXTSTEP version of Emacs 19.22 which supports colors,
  menus, and multiple frames.  You can get it from

  ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/software/NeXT/binaries/editors/Emacs_for_NeXTstep_4.0.pkg.tar.gz

98:  Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?

  Until recently, the FSF participated in the League for Programming
  Freedom's boycott of Apple because of Apple's "look and feel" copyright
  suits.  (RMS confirmed in early February that "The boycott was
  unsuccessful because not enough people were boycotting, so the LPF
  decided to end it.")

  An unofficial port of GNU Emacs 18.59 to the Macintosh is available at a
  number of ftp sites, the home being

    ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet

99:  Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?

  Version 19.28 has a VMS directory containing installation instructions, a
  makefile, and various .com files.  But according to Richard Levitte
  <[e-mail]>, it does not run out of the box.  Even if it does, the
  VMSNOTES indicates that the Emacs on VMS is going to have much more
  limited functionality.  Richard Levitte has a patched 19.22 that
  supposedly has subprocess and networking functionality just as on Unix,
  with virtually the same lisp interface.  The source is available at

    ftp://ftp.vms.stacken.kth.se/GNU-VMS/Beta/EMACS-19_22-********.TAR-GZ

  where ******** is the release date of the kit.  For more information, see

    http://www.e.kth.se/~levitte/gnu/emacs_faq.html

100: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++,
     Objective C, Pascal, and Awk?

  Most of these modes are now available in standard Emacs distribution.  To
  get additional modes, look in the Lisp Code Directory (see question 86).
  For C++, if you use lisp-dir-apropos, you must specify the pattern like
  this:

    M-x lisp-dir-apropos RET c\+\+ RET

  Note that Barry Warsaw's cc-mode now works for C, C++, and Objective-C
  code.  You can get the latest version from the Emacs Lisp Archive; see
  question 87 for details.

101: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

  If your site's nameserver is deficient, you can use IP addresses to FTP
  files.  You can get this information by

  * E-mail:

    To: dns@[134.214.84.25]              (to grasp.insa-lyon.fr)
    Body: ip XXX.YYY.ZZZ                 (or "help" for more information
                                                and options - no quotes)
    or:

    To: resolve@[147.31.254.130]         (to cs.widener.edu)
    Body: site XXX.YYY.ZZZ

  * Telnet:

    telnet 192.82.113.1 117              (to acom-emh1.army.mil)
    Hostname or IP address: XXX.YYY.ZZZ

Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 110), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------



Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs

102: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs

  Author: Kyle Jones <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 5.72 (beta)
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/mail/vm/vm-5.72beta.tar.gz
  Newsgroups and mailing lists:
    Informational newsgroup/mailing list:
      gnu.emacs.vm.info (newsgroup)
      [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
      [e-mail] (for submissions)
    Bug reports newsgroup/mailing list:
      gnu.emacs.vm.bug (newsgroup)
      [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
      [e-mail] (for submissions)

103: SuperCite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs

  Author: Barry Warsaw <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.54 (comes with Emacs 19)
                  3.1  (available from the Emacs Lisp Archive)
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/sc3.1.tar.Z
  Mailing list:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)
  NOTE: Superyank is an old version of SuperCite.

104: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs

  Author: Dave Gillespie <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 2.02c
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/calc-2.02c.tar.gz
  NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue
        anyone for having a program with a similar command language to
        Calc.  :-)

105: VIP -- vi emulation for Emacs

  Author: Aamod Sane <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 4.3
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://cs.uiuc.edu/pub/vip4.3.tar.Z
    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z
  NOTE: This version much more closely emulates vi than the one
  distributed with Emacs.

106: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities

  Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <[e-mail]>
           and Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 9.2y
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://ftp.iesd.auc.dk/pub/emacs-lisp/auctex-9.2y.tar.gz
  Mailing list:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)
    [e-mail] (auc-tex development team)
  World-Wide Web:
    http://www.iesd.auc.dk/~amanda/auctex/

107: Hyperbole -- extensible hypertext management system within Emacs

  Author: Bob Weiner <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.16
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://wilma.cs.brown.edu/pub/hyperbole/h3.16.tar.Z
  Mailing lists:
    hyperbole-announce -- Hyperbole release announcements only.
      Subscriptions:
        To: [e-mail]
        Subject: Add <[e-mail]> to hyperbole-announce
    hyperbole -- Hyperbole discussion.
      Subscriptions:
        To: [e-mail]
        Subject: Add <[e-mail]> to hyperbole
      Submissions:
        [e-mail]
    NOTE: Any member of the hyperbole mailing list is automatically a
          member of the hyperbole-announce mailing list.
    NOTE: No .UUCP or ! addresses are allowed on these mailing lists.

108: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers

  Author: Jamie Zawinski <[e-mail]>
  Latest released version: 1.50
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/bbdb-1.50.tar.Z
  Mailing lists:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)
    [e-mail] (to be informed of new releases)
    NOTE: BBDB does not work with VM 4.  It does work with VM 5,
          Rmail, Gnus, and MH-E.

109: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs

  Author: Geoff Kuenning <[e-mail]>
  Latest released version: 3.1.18
  Anonymous FTP:
   Master Sites:
     ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/ispell/ispell-3.1.18.tar.gz
     ftp://ftp.math.orst.edu/pub/ispell/ispell-3.1.18.tar.gz
   Known Mirror Sites:
     ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/dicts/ispell/
     ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/textproc/ispell/

  NOTE: * Do not ask Geoff to send you the latest version of Ispell.
          He does not have free e-mail.

        * This Ispell program is distinct from GNU Ispell 4.0. GNU
          Ispell 4.0 is no longer a supported product.

110: W3-mode -- A World-Wide Web browser inside of Emacs

  Author: Bill Perry <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 2.1.85, but new ones come out every week or two
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://cs.indiana.edu/pub/elisp/w3/w3.tar.gz
  Mailing lists:
    [e-mail] (to get announcements of new versions)
    [e-mail] (for beta-testers of new versions)
    [e-mail] (for developers of W3)

111: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes

  Author: Michael Ernst <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 1.18
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/emacs/edb-1.18
  Newsgroups and mailing lists:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)

112: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

  Author: Larry Wall <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 2.1
  Anonymous FTP: See question 89


Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

113: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?

  Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs
  file.  To interactively bind keys for all modes, type

    M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET

  To bind a key just in the current major mode, type

    M-x local-set-key RET KEY CMD RET

  See "Key Bindings" in the on-line manual for further details.

  To bind keys on starting Emacs or on starting any given mode, use the
  following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately
  type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g".  Now, the command needed to bind the key
  is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file.  If the key
  binding is global, no changes to the command are required.  For example,

    (global-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help))

  can be placed directly into the .emacs file.  If the key binding is
  local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command.
  For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be

    (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook
      (function (lambda ()
        (local-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help))))

  NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the
          kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown
          as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc.  You may want to
          convert these into their vector or string forms.

        * If a prefix key of the character sequence to be bound is already
          bound as a complete key, then you must unbind it before the new
          binding.  For example, if "ESC {" is previously bound:

                    (global-unset-key [?\e ?{])   ;;   or
                     (local-unset-key [?\e ?{])

        * Aside from commands and "lambda lists," a vector or string also
          can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro.  For example:

           (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g])  ;;  or
           (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g")

        * XEmacs has a completely different syntax for binding keys; don't
          follow these directions if you are using XEmacs.

114: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?

  Usually, one of two things has happened.  In one case, the control
  character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used
  instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression).  In the other case, a
  "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was
  already bound as a "complete key."  Historically, the "ESC [" prefix was
  usually the problem, in which case you should evaluate either of these
  forms before attempting to bind the key sequence:

    (global-unset-key [?\e ?[])  ;;  or
    (global-unset-key "\e[")

115: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?

  During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file
  order.  If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be
  postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been
  executed but is not, then you will experience this problem (this
  code/file execution order is not enforced after startup).

  To postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after terminal or
  window-system setup, treat the code as a "lambda list" and set the value
  of either the "term-setup-hook" or "window-setup-hook" variable to this
  "lambda function."  For example,

    (setq term-setup-hook
          (function
           (lambda ()
             (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
                    ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
                    (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command))
                   ))))

  For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see the
  lisp/startup.el file.

116: How do I use function keys under X Windows?

  With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key.  See
  question 113 for details.

117: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?

  Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys.  The command will return
  either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line
  documentation for an explanation).  This works for other keys as well.

118: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?

  Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no
  "translations" to be set.  (We aren't sure how to set such translations
  if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!)

  The only way to affect the behavior of keys within Emacs is through
  "xmodmap" (outside Emacs) or "define-key" (inside Emacs).  The
  "define-key" command should be used in conjunction with the
  "function-key-map" map.  For instance,

     (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t])

  defines the "M-TAB" key sequence.

119: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?

  C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.  This messes
  things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to
  commands by default.  Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control
  characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm
  output buffers.  Sometimes, intermediate software using XON/XOFF flow
  control will prevent Emacs from ever seeing C-s and C-q.

  Possible solutions:

  * Disable the use of C-s and C-q for flow control.

    You need to determine the cause of the flow control.

    * your terminal

      Your terminal may use XON/XOFF flow control to have time to display
      all the characters it receives.  For example, VT series terminals do
      this.  It may be possible to turn this off from a setup menu.  For
      example, on a VT220 you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu.  This
      is also true for some terminal emulation programs on PCs.

      When you turn off flow control at the terminal, you will also need to
      turn it off at the other end, which might be at the computer you are
      logged in to or at some terminal server in between.

      If you turn off flow control, characters may be lost; using a printer
      connected to the terminal may fail.  You may be able to get around
      this problem by modifying the "termcap" entry for your terminal to
      include extra NUL padding characters.

    * a modem

      If you are using a dialup connection, the modems may be using
      XON/XOFF flow control.  It's not clear how to get around this.

    * a router or terminal server

      Some network box between the terminal and your computer may be using
      XON/XOFF flow control.  It may be possible to make it use some other
      kind of flow control.  You will probably have to ask your local
      network experts for help with this.

    * tty and/or pty devices

      If your connection to Emacs goes through multiple tty and/or pty
      devices, they may be using XON/XOFF flow control even when it is not
      necessary.

      Eirik Fuller <[e-mail]> writes:

        Some versions of "rlogin" (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
        control characters to the remote system to which they connect.  On
        such systems, Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
        control on the local system.  Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this
        problem.

        One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
        (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
        stty command, before starting the rlogin process.  On many systems,
        "stty start u stop u" will do this.

        Some versions of "tcsh" will prevent even this from working.  One
        way around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin,
        and issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.

      Use "stty -ixon" instead of "stty start u stop u" on some systems.

  * Make Emacs speak the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.

    You can make Emacs treat C-s and C-q as flow control characters by
    evaluating the form

      (enable-flow-control)

    to unconditionally enable flow control or

      (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")

    (using your terminal names instead of "vt100" or "h19") to enable
    selectively.  These commands will automatically swap `C-s' and `C-q' to
    `C-\' and `C-^'.  Variables can be used to change the default swap keys
    ("flow-control-c-s-replacement" and "flow-control-c-q-replacement").

    If you are fixing this for yourself, simply put the form in your .emacs
    file.  If you are fixing this for your entire site, the best place to
    put it is in the lisp/site-start.el file.  Putting this form in
    lisp/default.el has the problem that if the user's .emacs file has an
    error, this will prevent lisp/default.el from being loaded and Emacs
    may be unusable for the user, even for correcting their .emacs file
    (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name).

    For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the
    top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source).

120: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?

  To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or
  "enable-flow-control-on".  See question 119 for usage and implementation
  details.

  To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate".  See question 123 for usage
  details.  To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in
  lisp/site-start.el.  See question 119 for an explanation of why
  lisp/default.el should not be used.

  NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by
          the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs
          actually behaves.

121: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?

  The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8.  `C-h'
  sends the same code.  In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command.
  This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help"
  is `h'.  The easiest solution to this problem is to use `C-h' (and
  Backspace) for help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous
  character.

  For many people this solution may be problematic:

  * They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the previous
    character.  This can be solved by making DEL the command for deleting
    the previous character outside of Emacs.  On many Unix systems, this
    command will remap DEL:

      stty erase `^?'

  * The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the previous
    character because it is more conveniently located on their keyboard or
    because they don't even have a separate Delete key.  In this case, the
    Backspace key should be made to behave like Delete.  There are several
    methods.

  * Some terminals (e.g., VT3## terminals) allow the character generated by
    the Backspace key to be changed from a setup menu.

  * You may be able to get a keyboard that is completely programmable.

  * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and
    Delete keys inside Emacs:

      (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)

    See question 123 for further details of "keyboard-translate".

  * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h"
    instead:

      (global-set-key [?\C-h] 'delete-backward-char)
      (global-set-key [?\C-x ?h] 'help-command)
                               ;; overrides mark-whole-buffer

    Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?".

    NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many
            modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere.

122: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?

  Good question!

123: How do I "swap" two keys?

  In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the
  "keyboard-translate" function.  For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and
  DEL to `C-h', use

        (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)  ; translate `C-h' to DEL
        (keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h)  ; translate DEL to `C-h'.

  The first key sequence of the pair after the function identifies what is
  produced by the keyboard; the second, what is matched for in the keymaps.

  Keyboard translations are not the same as key bindings in keymaps.  Emacs
  contains numerous keymaps that apply in different situations, but there
  is only one set of keyboard translations, and it applies to every
  character that Emacs reads from the terminal.  Keyboard translations take
  place at the lowest level of input processing; the keys that are looked
  up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard
  translation.

  Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual.

124: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?

  On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are:

            C-2  or  C-SPC         for      C-@
            C-6                    for      C-^
            C-7  or  C-S--         for      C-_
            C-4                    for      C-\
            C-5                    for      C-]
            C-/                    for      C-?

  Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with
  all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated.  You can
  also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command.

125: What if I don't have a Meta key?

  Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a".  In fact, Emacs converts
  M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of
  meta-prefix-char).  Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while
  you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'.

126: What if I don't have an Escape key?

  Type `C-[' instead.  This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
  key would.  `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X).  For
  many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC.  If not, the
  following form can be used to bind it:

  (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e])  ; F11 is the documented ESC
                                             ; replacement on DEC terminals.

127: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?

  On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no.  It is rumored that certain VT220
  clones could have their Compose key configured this way.  If you're using
  X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program.

128: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?

  With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format
  by adding prefixes to the function key symbol.  For example (from the
  on-line documentation):

           (global-set-key [?\C-x right] 'forward-page)

  where "?\C-x" is the Lisp character constant for the character "C-x".

  You can use the modifier keys Control, Meta, Hyper, Super, Alt, and Shift
  with function keys.  To represent these modifiers, prepend the strings
  "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name.  Here is how
  to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word:

           (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word)

  NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations.  Hyper, Super,
          and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such
          keys).  Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and
          "mouse-1") also fall under this category.

  See question 113 for general key binding instructions.

129: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?

  Try all of these methods before asking for further help:

  * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager.  {Does
    anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in
    Emacs with mwm?}

  * For X11: Make sure it really is a Meta key.  Use "xev" to find out what
    keysym your Meta key generates.  It should be either Meta_L or Meta_R.
    If it isn't, use xmodmap to fix the situation.

  * Make sure the pty the xterm is using is passing 8 bit characters.
    "stty -a" (or "stty everything") should show "cs8" somewhere.  If it
    shows "cs7" instead, use "stty cs8 -istrip" (or "stty pass8") to fix
    it.

  * If there is an rlogin connection between the xterm and the Emacs, the
    "-8" argument may need to be given to rlogin to make it pass all 8 bits
    of every character.

  * If the Emacs is running under Ultrix, it is reported that evaluating
    (set-input-mode t nil) helps.

  * If all else fails, you can make xterm generate "ESC W" when you type
    M-W, which is the same conversion Emacs would make if it got the M-W
    anyway.  In X11R4, the following resource specification will do this:

      XTerm.VT100.EightBitInput: false

    (This changes the behavior of the insert-eight-bit action.)

    With older xterms, you can specify this behavior with a translation:

      XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
        Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert()

    You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt".

130: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0?

  This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the
  fact that HP is now using this extension.  Emacs assumes that
  XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state
  which is no longer necessarily true.  Until Emacs is fixed, the temporary
  kludge is to run this command after each time the X server is started but
  preferably before any xterm clients are:

    xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch'

  NOTE: This will disable the use of the extra keysyms systemwide, which
  may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them.


Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

131: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?

  Emacs 19 has built-in support for 8-bit characters.  Here is an excerpt
  from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual:

    Some European languages use accented letters and other special symbols.
    The ISO 8859 Latin-1 character set defines character codes for many
    European languages in the range 160 to 255.

    Emacs can display those characters according to Latin-1, provided the
    terminal or font in use supports them.  The "M-x
    standard-display-european" command toggles European character display
    mode.  With a numeric argument, "M-x standard-display-european" enables
    European character display if and only if the argument is positive.

    Some operating systems let you specify the language you are using by
    setting a locale.  Emacs handles one common special case of this: if
    your locale name for character types contains the string "8859-1" or
    "88591", Emacs automatically enables European character display mode
    when it starts up.

132: How do I input 8-bit characters?

  Again, from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual:

    If you enter non-ASCII ISO Latin-1 characters often, you might find ISO
    Accents mode convenient.  When this minor mode is enabled, the
    characters ``', `'', `"', `^', `/' and `~' modify the following letter
    by adding the corresponding diacritical mark to it, if possible.  To
    enable or disable ISO Accents mode, use the command "M-x
    iso-accents-mode".  This command affects only the current buffer.

    To enter one of those six special characters, type the character,
    followed by a space.  Some of those characters have a corresponding
    "dead key" accent character in the ISO Latin-1 character set; to enter
    that character, type the corresponding ASCII character twice.  For
    example, `''' enters the Latin-1 character acute-accent (character code
    0264).

133: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?

  MULE (MULtilingual Enhancement of Emacs) can handle many character sets
  at once, a feature that will eventually be merged into Emacs. MULE is
  available at

    ftp://sh.wide.ad.jp/JAPAN/mule
    ftp://eltport.etl.go.jp/pub/mule

134: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

  Joel M. Hoffman <[e-mail]> has written a Lisp package called
  hebrew.el that allows right-to-left editing of Hebrew.  It reportedly
  works out of the box with Emacs 19, but requires patches for Emacs 18.
  Write to Joel if you want the patches or package.

  Hebrew.el requires a Hebrew screen font, but no other Hardware support.
  Joel has a screen font for PCs running MS-DOS and Linux.

  You might also try to query archie for files named with "hebrew"; several
  ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files.

Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 110), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------



Mail and News

135: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?

  If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable
  mail-yank-prefix.  For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix.  For mh-e, set
  mh-ins-buf-prefix.

  For fancier control of citations, use SuperCite.  See question 103.

  To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to
  message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate
  regexp.

136: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?

  You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the
  mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by
  including an "FCC:" header.

  If you use standard mail, you can automatically create a "BCC:" to
  yourself by putting

    (setq mail-self-blind t)

  in your .emacs file.  You can automatically include an "FCC:" field by
  putting something like the following in your .emacs file:

    (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing"))

  The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly
  by VM, but not always by Rmail.  See question 138.

  If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file.

  It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file.

137: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?

  * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
    with commas.  This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
    like this one:

      To: Willy Smith <[e-mail]>

    However, you do not need to -- and probably should not, unless your
    system's version of /usr/ucb/mail (aka mailx) supports RFC822 --
    separate addresses with commas in your ~/.mailrc file.

  * Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you
    start to compose your first mail message.  If you edit .mailrc, you can
    type "M-x rebuild-mail-abbrevs RET" to make Emacs reread your ~/.mailrc
    file.

  * If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
    type them in.  To enable this feature, execute the following:

       (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)

    Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type
    RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,').  You can force their
    expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e"
    (M-x expand-abbrev).

138: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?

  A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail
  format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format).  Rmail will try to
  convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it
  makes errors.  For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages
  file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function
  set-rmail-inbox-list.

139: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?

  In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their
  key bindings.

140: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?

  This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses.  This
  indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.

  RMS writes:

    Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files.
    On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing
    mail.  You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.

    Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access.  On these
    systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.

141: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?

  If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it
  in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k).

  If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and
  you want to put them in a Unix mail file, use C-o on each message.

  If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail
  format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and
  output file names.

142: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?

  To start Emacs in Gnus:

    emacs -f gnus

  in Rmail:

    emacs -f rmail

  A more convenient way to start with Gnus:

    alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus'
    gnus

  It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader
  from your .emacs file.  This would cause problems if you needed to run
  two copies of Emacs at one time.  Also, this would make it difficult for
  you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.

143: How do I read news under Emacs?

  Use M-x gnus.  It is documented in Info (see question 14).

144: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?

  There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests
  are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before
  blocking waiting for more input which never comes.  NNTP version 1.5.11
  claims to fix this.

  You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this:

    (setq nntp-maximum-request 1)

  You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by
  telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine
  (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119").  The server should give its version
  number in the welcome message.  Type "quit" to get out.

145: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?

  Underlining appears like this:

    _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg

  Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]> suggests using the following code,
  which uses the underline face to turn such text into true underlining:

    (defun gnus-article-prepare-overstrike ()
      ;; Prepare article for overstrike commands.
      (save-excursion
        (set-buffer gnus-article-buffer)
        (let ((buffer-read-only nil))
          (while (search-forward "\b" nil t)
            (let ((next (following-char))
                  (previous (char-after (- (point) 2))))
              (cond ((eq next previous)
                     (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
                     (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
                                        'face 'bold))
                    ((eq next ?_)
                     (delete-region (1- (point)) (1+ (point)))
                     (put-text-property (1- (point)) (point)
                                        'face 'underline))
                    ((eq previous ?_)
                     (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
                     (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
                                        'face 'underline))))))))

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-overstrike)

  If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can
  destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this
  automatically via

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook
      '(lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max))))


146: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?

  Use gnus-uu.  Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list
  of available commands.

147: Why does Gnus put the subjects in replies beyond the 80th column?

  This is a feature.  If you set gnus-thread-hide-subject to non-nil, Gnus
  will only display the subject of the first posting in a thread, even if
  some of the replies use different subjects.  It hides the subjects by
  putting them past the edge of the window and setting truncate lines to t.

  If your screen looks messed up, then for some reason truncate-lines in
  your "*Subject*" buffer has been set to nil.  It should be set to t.

148: How do I make Gnus start up faster?

  Remove all the newsgroups in which you have no interest from your .newsrc
  file by using Gnus's C-k or C-w commands in the "*Newsgroup*" buffer,
  perhaps after displaying all newsgroups with the L command.
  Unsubscribing will not speed up Gnus.

149: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?

  In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation:

    M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e

  Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
  the "*Newsgroup" buffer.

150: Why can't I kill in Gnus based  on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?

  Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:"
  headers are "Unknown header" fields.

  For the "Newsgroups:" header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the
  "Xref" header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article
  (as long as your site carries the cross-post group).

  If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
  this:

    (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")

151: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?

  Set nntp-debug-read to nil.

152: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?

  Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read.  You can control this with
  the variable gnus-use-cross-reference.

153: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?

  David Lawrence <[e-mail]> explains:

    The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News.  NNTP
    POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang
    around and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was
    successful.  (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status
    of the waited for job is a different sort of problem.)  It ends up
    taking a long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often
    waits for another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it
    can file the article.

    My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but
    rather use newsspool.  This loses some error-catching functionality,
    but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors
    on its own.  The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should
    look better to most folks as that update propagates around.

154: Why don't my news postings in Gnus get past the local machine?

  It could be that your Distribution: field is "local" or a synonym, or
  your Path: field may be wrong.  This piece of code may fix the latter
  problem:

    (setq gnus-use-generic-path t)

155: Why doesn't Gnus generate the "Lines:" header?

  The posting software down the line from Gnus often generates a "Lines:"
  header so Gnus doesn't have to.  If you want it to, just add Lines to the
  list in gnus-required-headers:

    (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook
        '(lambda ()
           (setq gnus-required-headers (cons 'Lines gnus-required-headers))))

156: How do I kill all articles in Gnus but those matching a pattern?

  Example kill file code:

    ;; kill everything
    (gnus-kill "subject" "" nil nil)
    ;; then restore stuff by our favorite poster
    (gnus-kill "from" "good-guy"
               (function
                (lambda ()
                  (if (eq ?X (char-after (save-excursion
                                           (beginning-of-line 1)
                                           (point))))
                      (gnus-summary-clear-mark-forward 1))))
               t)

157: How do I abort sending mail or posting a message?

  Kill the mail or posting buffer with C-x k.

158: How do I fix and resubmit a rejected Gnus posting?

  The standard buffer name for editing Gnus posts is *post-news*.  Assuming
  that you haven't used that buffer since trying to post the rejected
  article, you should be able to switch to it using C-x b or

    M-x select-buffer RET *post-news* RET

  Once in that buffer, fix whatever problems the message might have, and
  submit it again using C-c C-c.

159: How do I automatically mail a copy of a Gnus followup message to
     the original poster?

  Include this Lisp form in your .emacs file:

    (setq gnus-auto-mail-to-author t)

160: How do I make Gnus behave more like nn, where I scan all the messages
     and select the ones I want before I read any?

   Include this Lisp form in your .emacs file:

     (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil
        gnus-auto-select-next 'quietly)

  When you enter a group, mark the articles you don't want using `d' and
  `C-k', then expunge the ones so marked with `x'.  Move to the first
  article with `M-<', and start reading (with SPC).

------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1994, 1995 Reuven M. Lerner
Copyright 1992, 1993 Steven Byrnes
Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Joseph Brian Wells

This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers
("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other
formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS), and updated with new information.

The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ
itself.  Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved
translation, information on who is currently maintaining the FAQ and how to
contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the
latest version of the FAQ is archived (including FTP information).

The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that
the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work
itself allows free copying and redistribution.

------------------------------------------------------------

People who helped with this version of the FAQ:

Ethan Bradford <[e-mail]>, William G. Dubuque
<[e-mail]>, Michael Ernst <[e-mail]>,
and Denby Wong <[e-mail]>.