Re: Calling external programs in emacs

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>]

On Fri, Jan 13 2017, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2017 18:53:42 +0000 (UTC)
> Sam Nirvana <samnirvana@linux.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm new to emacs, so forgive my inexperience.
>> 
>> As you know, with Vim I can compile, say, a TeX file from 
>> within the 
>> editor with the following command:
>> 
>> 	:!pdftex %
>> 
>> Is there a way to do the same thing with emacs?
>
> The emacs function you want is called shell-function.  It's 
> usually
> mapped to M-! (meta-bang).  You can verify that with either 
>
> 	C-h f shell-function
> or
> 	C-h k M-!
>
> To run asynchronously, see async-shell-function, usually M-&.  

It should perhaps be pointed out that while M-! works to call 
`shell-command', Emacs usually provides some interface to the most 
commond commands you may want to call for a specific file type. So 
running pdftex on a file doesn't require calling M-! and typing 
out the command. Personally, I use AUCTeX (which you should really 
check out if you use TeX or LaTeX), which makes it possible to 
call TeX & friends with C-c C-c. It even tries to guess what 
command you're most likely to execute next. 



-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments