Re: perl-mode.el file in Mac OS X

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> (setq auto-mode-alist
>    (append
>      '(("\\.xsl$"       . sgml-mode)
>        ("\\.plist$"     . sgml-mode)
>        ("\\.idd$"       . sgml-mode)
>        ("\\.ide$"       . sgml-mode)
>        ("\\.xml$"       . xml-mode)
>        ("\\.xsl$"       . xml-mode)
>        ("\\.fo$"        . xml-mode)
>        ("\\.nw$"        . noweb-mode)
>        ("\\.f90$"       . f90-mode)
>        ("\\.pl$"        . perl-mode)
>        ("\\.pod$"       . perl-mode)
>        ("\\.tgz$"       . tar-mode)
>        ("\\.tar\\.bz2$" . tar-mode)
>        ("\\.tar\\.gz$"  . tar-mode))
>    auto-mode-alist))

IIRC, the problem with the .pl extension is that it's used both for Perl and
Prolog files, so I recommend people avoid it and use one of the many other
possible extensions, such as ".perl".

Oh and BTW, while I'm posting a useless message, I might as well use
<anal-mode> and point out that the above regexps should be "\\.xsl\\'",
"\\.plist\\'", ..., "\\.pl\\'", ..., "\\.tar\\.gz\\'" (i.e. replace $ with
\\' because $ would also match an embedded newline in a file name whereas
\\' really only matches the end of the file name).

If you feel like shortening such a list, you can also use things like:

(setq auto-mode-alist
   (append
     '(("\\.\\(xsl\\|plist\\|id[de]\\)\\'"     . sgml-mode)
       ("\\.\\(xml\\|xsl\\|fo\\)\\'"           . xml-mode)
       ("\\.nw\\'"                             . noweb-mode)
       ("\\.f90\\'"                            . f90-mode)
       ("\\.\\(pl\\|pod\\)\\'"                 . perl-mode)
       ("\\.\\(tgz\\|tar.\\(gz\\|bz2\\)\\)\\'" . tar-mode))
     auto-mode-alist))


-- Stefan