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Abbrevs are usually expanded by certain interactive commands,
including self-insert-command. This section describes the
subroutines used in writing such commands, as well as the variables they
use for communication.
This function returns the symbol representing the abbrev named
abbrev. It returns nil if that abbrev is not
defined. The optional second argument table is the abbrev table
in which to look it up. If table is nil, this function
tries first the current buffer’s local abbrev table, and second the
global abbrev table.
This function returns the string that abbrev would expand into (as
defined by the abbrev tables used for the current buffer). It returns
nil if abbrev is not a valid abbrev.
The optional argument table specifies the abbrev table to use,
as in abbrev-symbol.
This command expands the abbrev before point, if any. If point does not
follow an abbrev, this command does nothing. To do the expansion, it
calls the function that is the value of the abbrev-expand-function
variable, with no arguments, and returns whatever that function does.
The default expansion function returns the abbrev symbol if it did
expansion, and nil otherwise. If the abbrev symbol has a hook
function that is a symbol whose no-self-insert property is
non-nil, and if the hook function returns nil as its
value, then the default expansion function returns nil,
even though expansion did occur.
This function inserts the abbrev expansion of abbrev, replacing
the text between start and end. If start is
omitted, it defaults to point. name, if non-nil, should
be the name by which this abbrev was found (a string); it is used to
figure out whether to adjust the capitalization of the expansion. The
function returns abbrev if the abbrev was successfully
inserted.
This command marks the current location of point as the beginning of
an abbrev. The next call to expand-abbrev will use the text
from here to point (where it is then) as the abbrev to expand, rather
than using the previous word as usual.
First, this command expands any abbrev before point, unless arg
is non-nil. (Interactively, arg is the prefix argument.)
Then it inserts a hyphen before point, to indicate the start of the
next abbrev to be expanded. The actual expansion removes the hyphen.
When this is set non-nil, an abbrev entered entirely in upper
case is expanded using all upper case. Otherwise, an abbrev entered
entirely in upper case is expanded by capitalizing each word of the
expansion.
The value of this variable is a buffer position (an integer or a marker)
for expand-abbrev to use as the start of the next abbrev to be
expanded. The value can also be nil, which means to use the
word before point instead. abbrev-start-location is set to
nil each time expand-abbrev is called. This variable is
also set by abbrev-prefix-mark.
The value of this variable is the buffer for which
abbrev-start-location has been set. Trying to expand an abbrev
in any other buffer clears abbrev-start-location. This variable
is set by abbrev-prefix-mark.
This is the abbrev-symbol of the most recent abbrev expanded. This
information is left by expand-abbrev for the sake of the
unexpand-abbrev command (see Expanding
Abbrevs in The GNU Emacs Manual).
This is the location of the most recent abbrev expanded. This contains
information left by expand-abbrev for the sake of the
unexpand-abbrev command.
This is the exact expansion text of the most recent abbrev expanded,
after case conversion (if any). Its value is nil if the abbrev
has already been unexpanded. This contains information left by
expand-abbrev for the sake of the unexpand-abbrev command.
The value of this variable is a function that expand-abbrev
will call with no arguments to do the expansion. The function can do
anything it wants before and after performing the expansion.
It should return the abbrev symbol if expansion took place.
The following sample code shows a simple use of
abbrev-expand-function. It assumes that foo-mode is a
mode for editing certain files in which lines that start with ‘#’
are comments. You want to use Text mode abbrevs for those lines. The
regular local abbrev table, foo-mode-abbrev-table is
appropriate for all other lines. See Standard Abbrev Tables, for the
definitions of local-abbrev-table and text-mode-abbrev-table.
See Advising Functions, for details of add-function.
(defun foo-mode-abbrev-expand-function (expand)
(if (not (save-excursion (forward-line 0) (eq (char-after) ?#)))
;; Performs normal expansion.
(funcall expand)
;; We're inside a comment: use the text-mode abbrevs.
(let ((local-abbrev-table text-mode-abbrev-table))
(funcall expand))))
(add-hook 'foo-mode-hook
#'(lambda ()
(add-function :around (local 'abbrev-expand-function)
#'foo-mode-abbrev-expand-function)))
Next: Standard Abbrev Tables, Previous: Abbrev Files, Up: Abbrevs [Contents][Index]