Re: Why save-excursion doesn't restore cursor position after 3 kill-line calls?

[tyler <tyler.smith@mail.mcgill.ca>]

Andreas Politz <politza@fh-trier.de> writes:

> tyler wrote:
>>
>> The real question is why save-excursion *doesn't* do this. The
>> documentation states that point is restored. Either 'restoring' point
>> means something other than setting point to equal the previously saved
>> value, or there is something missing in the documentation.
>>
>
> save-excursion stores a marker, not the 'byte' number. When you kill
> the line where point is, this marker gets replaced to the beginning of
> the line.
>
> ,----[ (info "(elisp)Excursions") ]
> |    *Warning:* Ordinary insertion of text adjacent to the saved point
> | value relocates the saved value, just as it relocates all markers.
> | More precisely, the saved value is a marker with insertion type `nil'.
> | *Note Marker Insertion Types::.  Therefore, when the saved point value
> | is restored, it normally comes before the inserted text.
> `----
>

Thanks. I think I understand, at least generally, what's going on now.
Markers are a new concept for me, so I'll have to do some more reading
to sort out the details.

Tyler

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