Re: defining functions in emacs

[Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu>]

In article <mailman.11.1138142928.2878.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 Matt Brown <mbrown83@ucsc.edu> wrote:

> Hi everyone
> 
> I wrote my first emacs function! Here's my function:
> 
> 
> (defun read-environment ()
>   (setq outbuf (generate-new-buffer "read-environment-outbuf"))
>   (call-process "read-environment.sh" nil outbuf nil)
>   (eval-buffer outbuf)
>   (kill-buffer outbuf))
> 
> It uses read-environment.sh to generate a whole bunch of setenv lines, 
> and then evaluates them.  Basically, it sources .bashrc and sets the new 
> variables in emacs.  It works fine, but I want to be able to run it by
> M-x read-environment

As others have pointed out, if you want to define a COMMAND, you have to 
use the (interactive) declaration.  You've just defined a function, and 
M-x executes commands.

> This doesn't work. I have to put
> (read-environment)
> into *scratch*, move to the ')' and do C-x C-e to evaluate it.  Pretty lame.

It's not quite that bad.  M-: can be used to execute arbitrary Lisp 
functions.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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