Re: A bit confused about C-h m results

[David Penton <djp@arqux.com>]

Thanks much for a very good answer. You hit upon the source of my  
confusion exactly.

The commands you mention (down-list, beginning-of-defun) are lisp-y  
sounding, so I assumed they only pertained to lisp-mode. Moreover,  
some of the functions appear to be defined in lisp.el, although they  
are apparently useful in broader contexts. But being defined in  
lisp.el added to my confusion.

Also, I am a newbie at using this group so I don't know if I should  
reply-all or just reply to the group. Kindly correct me if I am wrong  
by doing reply-all.

Thanks again for the good answer.

On 8-Sep-09, at 11:37 PM, Drew Adams wrote:

>> If I type C-h m  emacs lists a very few keystokes/commands from lisp-
>> mode. However, the list is clearly far short of the actual key
>> bindings provided by lisp-mode.
>
> AFAIK, only those few bindings are "provided" by Lisp mode. But that  
> doesn't
> mean they are the only bindings available when you are in Lisp mode.
>
> (Note, BTW, that Emacs-Lisp mode binds a few more keys.)
>
>> If I type C-h b I get a whole swack of key bindings,
>
> You see the bindings that are available to you in Lisp mode.
>
>> many of which pertain only to lisp
>
> Which, for instance?
>
> In emacs -Q, for Emacs 23.1, C-h b shows these bindings for the  
> major mode (Lisp
> mode):
>
> DEL		backward-delete-char-untabify
> C-c C-z	run-lisp
> C-M-q		indent-sexp
> C-M-x		lisp-eval-defun
>
>> and which, I suspect, are provided in lisp-mode.
>> These are just listed under "global bindings."
>
> Which of those global bindings were you thinking are provided by  
> Lisp mode and
> pertain only to Lisp? If you are thinking of things such as `C-M-d'
> (`down-list'), then the answer is that such commands are generally  
> useful,
> beyond Lisp.
>
> Similarly, a command such as `beginning-of-defun' (`C-M-a'), is  
> useful in
> multiple languages, in spite of its Lisp-sounding name. It in fact  
> changes its
> behavior, depending on the current mode (current language).
>
> See the Elisp manual, node List Motion.
>
> If keys are listed by `C-h b' as global bindings, then they are in  
> the keymap
> `global-map'. It's unlikely that the major mode (Lisp mode) added or  
> changed
> `global-map' bindings.
>
>> How would I get a listing of the bindings provided by lisp-mode  
>> alone?
>
> What you saw at the beginning of `C-h b' under the heading of major- 
> mode
> bindings, was just such a list. It is the same list you saw at the  
> top of what
> `C-h m' displays.
>
> Otherwise, you can do this:
>
> C-h v lisp-mode-map
>
> Or for a human-readable listing, download library help-fns+.el, load  
> it, and
> then do this;
>
> C-h M-k lisp-mode-map
>
> But the list of keys is still the same. ;-)
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/help-fns%2b.el
>
> I mention `C-h M-k' because it works for any keymap (that is bound  
> to a
> variable) - it's not always the case that `C-h m' and `C-h b' give  
> you the info
> you need. If you want the keys bound in a minibuffer map, for  
> instance, you
> cannot use `C-h [mb]' to get that info. But you can use `C-h M-k
> minibuffer-local-must-match-map' etc.
>
> HTH
>