Re: save buffer contents without moving mark/point?

["B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@alcisp.com>]

"Thomas L Roche" <tlroche@us.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.130.1172517269.7795.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org...
> Apologies if this is a FAQ, but I didn't see it when searching C-h F.
> I'm currently using GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i686-pc-cygwin, X toolkit) of
> 2004-03-22 on cm-test. (Hmm, I guess I need to upgrade my cygwin.)
>
> I'm looking for a {function, key binding} with semantics like windows
> C-a, i.e. that will select the current contents of the buffer
> (preferably respecting narrowing) and save it to the kill ring without
> killing (like copy-region-as-kill).
>
> What to use? If possible please reply directly to me as well as to the
> list, and TIA.
>
>
>

I think M-w already does that:

M-w runs the command copy-region-as-kill-nomark
   which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `pc-select'.
(copy-region-as-kill-nomark BEG END)

This is for Motif, Mac, MS Windows like behavior but you should be able to
use it under Linux or Cygwin too.

Ed