CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashemacselispcommand-line-arguments
Håkon Hægland
Håkon Hægland

Reputation: 40748

Special Emacs setup for a single file: Run lisp code at startup from command line

Suppose I have I file A.txt, which I often edit and also, into which I often insert the text "Test". It would then be nice if I could just press e.g. the F5 key to insert the text "Test" into the buffer. However, when I edit any other file I do not want the F5 key to be bound in this way.

It would then be nice if I could avoid messing up my .emacs init file with special code. Hence, consider defining a new file start.el located in the same directory as A.txt. The contents of start.el could be:

(defun insert-test-text ()
  (interactive)
  (insert "Test"))
(global-set-key '[f5]  'insert-test-text)

Then I write a bash script editA for editing the file A.txt in Emacs, e.g.

#! /bin/bash

emacs --run-code-on-init start.el A.txt &

The command line option run-code-on-init is unfortunately not a valid option.. Is there any good solution to this problem?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 341

Answers (2)

Inaimathi
Inaimathi

Reputation: 14065

I think you could get the effect you want by doing

emacs -l start.el a.txt

out of the box. According to the man page, that should start up emacs editing a.txt, with the lisp code in start.el loaded.

Does that work, or is there a reason the simple solution doesn't work for your use case?

Upvotes: 2

abo-abo
abo-abo

Reputation: 20342

Here's my view of the solution:

(defun insert-test-text ()
  (interactive)
  (insert "test"))

(add-hook 
 'text-mode-hook
 (lambda ()
   (if (string= (file-name-nondirectory (buffer-file-name))
                "A.txt")
       (local-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'insert-test-text))))

This will define the shortcut only for files named A.txt. You should tweak the code to your needs, of course.

Also, don't forget to bookmark the file if you edit it a lot. I've got a very quick setup (around two key chords) for ~20 files/directories. that I edit a lot. The setup is described here.

UPD

If you want the binding for single file, just drop file-name-nondirectory like so:

(add-hook 
 'text-mode-hook
 (lambda ()
   (if (string= (buffer-file-name)
                "~/A.txt")
       (local-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'insert-test-text))))

And here's what I do to keep my config manageable - in ~/.emacs:

(defvar dropbox.d "~/Dropbox/")
(defvar emacs.d (concat dropbox.d "source/site-lisp/"))
(add-to-list 'load-path emacs.d)
(defun add-subdirs-to-load-path (dir)
    (let ((default-directory dir))
      (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path)))
(add-subdirs-to-load-path emacs.d)
(load "init")
;; you can put the code in "source/site-lisp/feature1.el"
(load "feature1")

That's about the whole content of my ~/.emacs - the rest of the config is it the respective files in site-lisp dir. You can comment out the (load "feature1") to turn it off temporarily.

Upvotes: 2

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