common abbrev table for major modes

common abbrev table for major modes

[peterson]

Hi, how can I use one set of abbrev definitions in more than one major
mode?  I want to use the same abbrevs in all text modes, for example
text-mode, erc-mode, muse-mode.  What I found so far is the :parents
option of define-abbrev-table, which contains a list of abbrev tables
from which this table inherits abbreviations.  Seems like the thing
I'm after, but I have no idea how to define the parent.  I tried:

(define-abbrev-table 'muse-mode-abbrev-table '(    ) nil :parents
'(text-mode-abbrev-table))

And had all definitions in the text-mode abbrev table, but I get the
following error in a muse buffer:

abbrev-table-get: Wrong type argument: vectorp, text-mode-abbrev-table

Thanks in advance.

Re: common abbrev table for major modes

[Stefan Monnier]

> (define-abbrev-table 'muse-mode-abbrev-table '(    ) nil :parents
> '(text-mode-abbrev-table))

The :parents should be (list text-mode-abbrev-table) (other you have
a list containing the symbol `text-mode-abbrev-table' rather than a list
containing an abbrev-table).

You may also want to use

  (abbrev-table-put foo-abbrev-table :parents (list text-mode-abbrev-table))

if foo-abbrev-table already exists (calling `define-abbrev-table' on
a table that already exists is not a good idea).


        Stefan

Re: common abbrev table for major modes

[peterson]

Thank you for your help, it works!

On Dec 16, 11:08 pm, Stefan Monnier <monn...@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> > (define-abbrev-table 'muse-mode-abbrev-table '(    ) nil :parents
> > '(text-mode-abbrev-table))
>
> The :parents should be (list text-mode-abbrev-table) (other you have
> a list containing the symbol `text-mode-abbrev-table' rather than a list
> containing an abbrev-table).
>
> You may also want to use
>
>   (abbrev-table-put foo-abbrev-table :parents (list text-mode-abbrev-table))
>
> if foo-abbrev-table already exists (calling `define-abbrev-table' on
> a table that already exists is not a good idea).
>
>         Stefan