Problem with .emacs

Problem with .emacs

[Hendrik Bilges]

Hi,

after solving the problem with .emacs not being read (thanks to the
community :-) ) I am now confronted with an error in .emacs. I'm not good
yet at understanding what's going on in this file, most of the stuff I
simply copied from some examples on the net. Can somebody please have a
look and point out the mistake(s)?
Emacs tells me:

An error has occurred while loading `/home/billy/.emacs':
Symbol's value as variable is void: setq

I posted my .emacs here: http://phpfi.com/170452

Hendrik

Re: Problem with .emacs

[B. T. Raven]

"Hendrik Bilges" <VZQNVPETFXMY@spammotel.com> wrote in message
news:4qvvupFol4vsU2@individual.net...
> Hi,
>
> after solving the problem with .emacs not being read (thanks to the
> community :-) ) I am now confronted with an error in .emacs. I'm not
good
> yet at understanding what's going on in this file, most of the stuff I
> simply copied from some examples on the net. Can somebody please have a
> look and point out the mistake(s)?
> Emacs tells me:
>
> An error has occurred while loading `/home/billy/.emacs':
> Symbol's value as variable is void: setq
>
> I posted my .emacs here: http://phpfi.com/170452
>
> Hendrik

It's almost certainly bad syntax somewhere in your .emacs. Invoke emacs
with the switch --debug-init and then evaluate (setq  show-paren-mode t )
in *scratch with C-j after closing parenthesis. This highlighting of
matching parentheses can also be turned on via Custom and it writes
'(show-paren-mode t nil (paren)) into the (custom-set-variables .....
list) in your .emacs. I don't understand this syntax but I guess I don't
need to. There are both a variable and a function called show-paren-mode.
This will help you to find the syntax error in the vicinity of one or more
instances of the "setq" token.

A cursory look at your .emacs shows that this certainly looks suspicious:

....
setq TeX-auto-save t
setq TeX-parse-self t
setq-default TeX-master nil
....

Ed.

Re: Problem with .emacs

[Harold Lee]

Hendrik Bilges wrote:
> An error has occurred while loading `/home/billy/.emacs':
> Symbol's value as variable is void: setq
>
> I posted my .emacs here: http://phpfi.com/170452

The problem are these lines - they need to be in parentheses.

setq TeX-auto-save t
setq TeX-parse-self t
setq-default TeX-master nil

Re: Problem with .emacs

[Hendrik Bilges]

Harold Lee wrote:

> The problem are these lines - they need to be in parentheses.
> 
> setq TeX-auto-save t
> setq TeX-parse-self t
> setq-default TeX-master nil

Thanks a lot! I guess I should really learn how to write stuff in .emacs...

Hendrik

Re: Problem with .emacs

[Kevin Rodgers]

Hendrik Bilges wrote:
 > Thanks a lot! I guess I should really learn how to write stuff in 
.emacs...

There is a wealth of information in the Emacs manual; see the Init File node
(aka the "The Init File, ~/.emacs" section) and its subnodes (subsections):

Init Syntax (Init File Syntax)
Init Examples (Init File Examples)

Plus there are the Lisp Doc (Emacs Lisp Documentation Lookup), Lisp Eval
(Evaluating Emacs Lisp Expressions), and Lisp Interaction (Lisp
Interaction Buffers) nodes, and 2 other manuals distributed with Emacs:
the Emacs Lisp Introduction, and the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.

-- 
Kevin

Re: Problem with .emacs

[Harold Lee]

Hendrik Bilges wrote:
> I guess I should really learn how to write stuff in .emacs...

I recommend starting emacs and testing Lisp expressions in the
*scratch* buffer (the buffer that comes up by default when emacs starts
successfully).

Type in an expression and type C-j  (hold control + press j) to
evaluate it. For example, you can type numbers or strings, in addition
to more sophisticated expressions.

42
"hello"
(+ 1 2)

If you want to browse the list of functions available to you, try C-h f
(hold control + press h for help, then press f for functions). Then
type TAB and you'll get a completion list of all functions. A lot of
the names are descriptive and give you ideas of things to try out.

For a more formal education, check out the Gnu Emacs Lisp Reference
Manual here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/elisp-manual/

-Harold