Are abbrevs for this?

Are abbrevs for this?

[Paulo J. Matos]

Hi all,

I am developing  a new major mode for a new specification language
which uses a lot of unicode symbols but it also has an ascii notation.
Like some scheme modes convert the lambda keyword into the greek
lambda letter, I have a table of keywords that would like them to be
changed into unicode symbols.

Can I use abbrevs for this?

Cheers,

-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocmatos at gmail.com
http://www.pmatos.net

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[Xah Lee]

On Jun 10, 6:53 am, "Paulo J. Matos" <pocma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am developing  a new major mode for a new specification language
> which uses a lot of unicode symbols but it also has an ascii notation.
> Like some scheme modes convert the lambda keyword into the greek
> lambda letter, I have a table of keywords that would like them to be
> changed into unicode symbols.
>
> Can I use abbrevs for this?

you can use abbrev, like this:

Q: How to use abbrev to input unicode chars?

Put the following in your emacs init file:

(define-abbrev-table 'global-abbrev-table '(
    ("alpha" "α" nil 0)
    ("beta" "β" nil 0)
    ("gamma" "γ" nil 0)
    ("theta" "θ" nil 0)
    ("Infinity" "∞" nil 0)

    ("ar1" "→" nil 0)
    ("ar2" "⇒" nil 0)
    ))

(abbrev-mode t) ; turn on abbrev mode

Then, when you type “alpha ”, it will become “α”.

• Emacs and Unicode Tips
  http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_n_unicode.html


if you already have typed text and want to replace them to unicode,
you can also do so. See:

Q: How to replace “&” by “&amp;” in a region?

Place the following in your emacs init file:

(defun replace-string-pairs-region (start end mylist)
  "Replace string pairs in region."
  (save-restriction
    (narrow-to-region start end)
    (mapc
      (lambda (arg)
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (while (search-forward (car arg) nil t) (replace-match (cadr
arg)) )
      ) mylist
    )
  )
)

(defun replace-html-chars (start end)
  "Replace “<” by “&lt;” and other similar HTML chars that needs to be
encoded."
  (interactive "r")
(replace-string-pairs-region start end '(
("&" "&amp;")
("<" "&lt;")
(">" "&gt;")
    )
  )
)

With the above code, you can select a region, then press “Alt+x
replace-html-chars”, and have all “&”, “>”, “<” replaced by their
encoded entity. You can define a keyboard shortcut for easy operation.

You can also use the code to replace some HTML entities by their
actual unicode characters. For example:

&ldquo;    →    “
&rdquo;    →    ”
&eacute;   →    é
&copy;     →    ©

->         →    →
=>         →    ⇒
Pi         →    π
Infinity   →    ∞

This makes the HTML source code more elegant and readible. (You need
to declare your charset as one of unicode encodings. See Character
Sets and Encoding in HTML)

• Emacs and HTML Tips
  http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_html.html

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[Maurizio Vitale]

>>>>> "Paulo" == Paulo J Matos <pocmatos@gmail.com> writes:

    Paulo> Hi all, I am developing a new major mode for a new
    Paulo> specification language which uses a lot of unicode symbols
    Paulo> but it also has an ascii notation.  Like some scheme modes
    Paulo> convert the lambda keyword into the greek lambda letter, I
    Paulo> have a table of keywords that would like them to be changed
    Paulo> into unicode symbols.

    Paulo> Can I use abbrevs for this?

Possibly, but take a look at Tuareg, a mode for editing Ocaml.
They do replace keyword with unicode symbols, but they offer the
capability of rather seamlessly editing the original keyword.
OTH,

        Maurizio

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[TomSW]

On Jun 11, 1:53 am, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 10, 6:53 am, "Paulo J. Matos" <pocma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
>
> > I am developing  a new major mode for a new specification language
> > which uses a lot of unicode symbols but it also has an ascii notation.
> > Like some scheme modes convert the lambda keyword into the greek
> > lambda letter, I have a table of keywords that would like them to be
> > changed into unicode symbols.

If the scheme modes are anything like pretty-haskell, they don't
actually convert the text, they use font-lock to disguise "lambda" as
the greek letter - the source code itself doesn't change.

> > Can I use abbrevs for this?

Yes, if you want to replace the ascii notation with the unicode
symbols in the source code. If that is the case then the notation
sounds more like a set of conventional abbreviations than a part of
the language, in which case it would be nice to permit users to
customise the abbreviations; if in fact the ascii notation is part of
the language then the font-lock approach might work.

regards,
Tom SW

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[Paulo J. Matos]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:53 AM, TomSW<tom.weissmann@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 11, 1:53 am, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 10, 6:53 am, "Paulo J. Matos" <pocma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi all,
>>
>> > I am developing  a new major mode for a new specification language
>> > which uses a lot of unicode symbols but it also has an ascii notation.
>> > Like some scheme modes convert the lambda keyword into the greek
>> > lambda letter, I have a table of keywords that would like them to be
>> > changed into unicode symbols.
>
> If the scheme modes are anything like pretty-haskell, they don't
> actually convert the text, they use font-lock to disguise "lambda" as
> the greek letter - the source code itself doesn't change.
>

That's the approach I need...

>> > Can I use abbrevs for this?
>
> Yes, if you want to replace the ascii notation with the unicode
> symbols in the source code. If that is the case then the notation
> sounds more like a set of conventional abbreviations than a part of
> the language, in which case it would be nice to permit users to
> customise the abbreviations; if in fact the ascii notation is part of
> the language then the font-lock approach might work.
>

Can you ref any example doing that? Would the haskell-mode be the
thing to look at?

Cheers,

Paulo Matos

> regards,
> Tom SW
>



-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocmatos at gmail.com
http://www.pmatos.net

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[Paulo J. Matos]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:13 AM, Maurizio
Vitale<mav@cuma.polymath-solutions.lan> wrote:
>>>>>> "Paulo" == Paulo J Matos <pocmatos@gmail.com> writes:
>
>    Paulo> Hi all, I am developing a new major mode for a new
>    Paulo> specification language which uses a lot of unicode symbols
>    Paulo> but it also has an ascii notation.  Like some scheme modes
>    Paulo> convert the lambda keyword into the greek lambda letter, I
>    Paulo> have a table of keywords that would like them to be changed
>    Paulo> into unicode symbols.
>
>    Paulo> Can I use abbrevs for this?
>
> Possibly, but take a look at Tuareg, a mode for editing Ocaml.
> They do replace keyword with unicode symbols, but they offer the
> capability of rather seamlessly editing the original keyword.

This is the kind of thing Tom mentioned, right?

> OTH,
>
>        Maurizio
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocmatos at gmail.com
http://www.pmatos.net

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[TomSW]

On Jun 11, 1:42 pm, "Paulo J. Matos" <pocma...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yes, if you want to replace the ascii notation with the unicode
> > symbols in the source code. If that is the case then the notation
> > sounds more like a set of conventional abbreviations than a part of
> > the language, in which case it would be nice to permit users to
> > customise the abbreviations; if in fact the ascii notation is part of
> > the language then the font-lock approach might work.
>
> Can you ref any example doing that? Would the haskell-mode be the
> thing to look at?

Yes. Some details here: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_mode_for_Emacs.

cheers,
Tom SW

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[Maurizio Vitale]

>>>>> "Paulo" == Paulo J Matos <pocmatos@gmail.com> writes:

    Paulo> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:13 AM, Maurizio
    Paulo> Vitale<mav@cuma.polymath-solutions.lan> wrote:
    >>>>>>> "Paulo" == Paulo J Matos <pocmatos@gmail.com> writes:
    >> 
    >>    Paulo> Hi all, I am developing a new major mode for a new  
    >>  Paulo> specification language which uses a lot of unicode
    >> symbols    Paulo> but it also has an ascii notation.  Like some
    >> scheme modes    Paulo> convert the lambda keyword into the greek
    >> lambda letter, I    Paulo> have a table of keywords that would
    >> like them to be changed    Paulo> into unicode symbols.
    >> 
    >>    Paulo> Can I use abbrevs for this?
    >> 
    >> Possibly, but take a look at Tuareg, a mode for editing Ocaml.
    >> They do replace keyword with unicode symbols, but they offer the
    >> capability of rather seamlessly editing the original keyword.

    Paulo> This is the kind of thing Tom mentioned, right?

Yes, although I'm not familiar with the Haskell mode implementation. You
know have two modes to get "inspiration" from. I'd really follow this
route rather than inserting unicode into the source code: some users may
use non-unicode aware editors, at times you may want to use Unix
commands (grep, sed, awk) that may not know of unicode, etc...
Cheers,

        Maurizio

-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocmatos at gmail.com
    Paulo> http://www.pmatos.net




-- 
Maurizio Vitale
Polymath Solutions

Re: Are abbrevs for this?

[harven]

"Paulo J. Matos" <pocmatos@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:53 AM, TomSW<tom.weissmann@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 11, 1:53 am, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Jun 10, 6:53 am, "Paulo J. Matos" <pocma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Hi all,
>>>
>>> > I am developing  a new major mode for a new specification language
>>> > which uses a lot of unicode symbols but it also has an ascii notation.
>>> > Like some scheme modes convert the lambda keyword into the greek
>>> > lambda letter, I have a table of keywords that would like them to be
>>> > changed into unicode symbols.
>>
>> If the scheme modes are anything like pretty-haskell, they don't
>> actually convert the text, they use font-lock to disguise "lambda" as
>> the greek letter - the source code itself doesn't change.
>>
>
> That's the approach I need...

Here is the code

;; real lisp hackers use the lambda character
;; courtesy of stefan monnier on c.l.l
(defun sm-lambda-mode-hook ()
  (font-lock-add-keywords
   nil `(("\\<lambda\\>"
   (0 (progn (compose-region (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)
        ,(make-char 'greek-iso8859-7 107))
      nil))))))
(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook 'sm-lambda-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'lisp-interactive-mode-hook 'sm-lamba-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'scheme-mode-hook 'sm-lambda-mode-hook)