M-0 within keyboard macros

M-0 within keyboard macros

[medievalrants]

A problem I've worked around for years - wondering if there's a good
solution.
I sometimes want to create macros that include other macros. Normally,
this works fine. But if I want to execute the included macro as many
times as possible with M-0 (or a defined number of times that exceeds
the number in the file - e.g. M-10 when there are 5 executions in the
file), it seems like the macro rings the bell and execution stops, even
though there was more to do.

For instance - I use a macro to locate a chunk of text, and narrow the
screen - within the narrowed window, I want to execute a couple of
"included" macros M-0 times, returning to the top of the narrowed
window then widen the window and close the macro. (For re-execution
throughout the file).

(I'm a totally self-taught emacs user - I'm competent end enjoy
puzzling these things out but I have an arts background -- so be gentle
:)

Thanks
Alison

Re: M-0 within keyboard macros

[Mathias Dahl]

"medievalrants" <medievalrants@yahoo.ca> writes:

> For instance - I use a macro to locate a chunk of text, and narrow
> the screen - within the narrowed window, I want to execute a couple
> of "included" macros M-0 times, returning to the top of the narrowed
> window then widen the window and close the macro. (For re-execution
> throughout the file).

Could you try to explain that example in even more detail? Sometimes
keyboard macros (I think this is what you refer to as "macros") are a
bit limited. In those cases I usually write a small elisp function to
help me out. If you haven't tried writing any elisp functions you
should really start now :), it is not as hard as it might seem.

Re: M-0 within keyboard macros

[medievalrants]

Mathias Dahl wrote:
> "medievalrants" <medievalrants@yahoo.ca> writes:
>
> > For instance - I use a macro to locate a chunk of text, and narrow
> > the screen - within the narrowed window, I want to execute a couple
> > of "included" macros M-0 times, returning to the top of the narrowed
> > window then widen the window and close the macro. (For re-execution
> > throughout the file).
>
> Could you try to explain that example in even more detail? Sometimes
> keyboard macros (I think this is what you refer to as "macros") are a
> bit limited. In those cases I usually write a small elisp function to
> help me out. If you haven't tried writing any elisp functions you
> should really start now :), it is not as hard as it might seem.

Yes, I think I need elisp for this - this  issue of M-0 within kbd
macros comes up all the time for me. In this case, I'm doing something
really convoluted involving resetting the numbering register for each
paragraph in a large sgml coded text file. You really don't want to
know. I'm in kind of a hurry now, so I'm repeating keystrokes for each
para to run 2 sets of kbd macros. I hate repeating keystrokes!  When I
get a chance, I'll learn elisp - I've got the O'Reilly book.. The other
option is awk, but I'm not comfortable there yet either.

Thanks for your advice! I think you're right.