Re: emacs switch similar to vi's -R, or view equivalent?

["Andrew B. Young" <andrew@an3e.org>]

EXACTLY what I'm after!  Thanks so much Kevin.

Thanks also to Peter, William, and Edward for their helpful replies.
I am aware of their suggestions and that's what I have been doing for years.
But it's the command line switch I really wanted--saves keystrokes.

Cheers,
Andrew

Kevin Rodgers wrote:
> Andrew B. Young wrote:
>> Is there an emacs switch similar to vi's -R, or view equivalent?
>>
>> I use emacs regularly but find "view this_file" very comforting,
>> e.g., sudo view /etc/aliases.  This forces me to ! the write as
>> an extra measure of safety.
>>
>> My guess is that I need a special init file that gets loaded via an 
>> alias, i.e., "ev this_file".
>
> Here's a gem from 1997 
> (http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/46410ee284d11cc0):
>
> (setq command-switch-alist
>       (cons '("--read-only" . find-file-read-only-command-line-arg) ; 
> "-R"
>             command-switch-alist))
>
> (defun find-file-read-only-command-line-arg (switch)
>   "Visit next command line argument (after SWITCH) as a read-only file."
>   ;; (prog1 (car x) (setq x (cdr x))) == (pop x):
>   (find-file-read-only (prog1 (car command-line-args-left)
>                          (setq command-line-args-left
>                                (cdr command-line-args-left)))))
>