| The tables in this appendix list the most useful Lisp packages that come with Emacs. All Lisp packages are typically located in the directory emacs-source/lisp, where emacs-source is the directory in which you placed the Emacs source distribution. We have omitted all of the packages that provide "basic" Emacs support; likewise, we have omitted many packages whose functionality is obsolete or unspeakably obscure. While some of these packages are described in some detail in this book, most aren't; you will have to rely on GNU Emacs' help for precise descriptions of what the package does. See Chapter 14 for details about help; the most important help commands you will need for finding out about the functionality of Lisp packages are C-h p (for finder-by-keyword), C-h f (for describe-function), and C-h m (for describe-mode). C-h p is especially helpful. It lets you navigate through a hierarchy of information about all packages available on your system, from general areas of functionality, like those in the tables in this appendix, to the C-h m information about each individual mode. Unfortunately, the detailed information is sometimes incomplete and also lists many packages that could not possibly be interesting to anyone other than hard-core Emacs customizers. Wherever it is reasonable, the tables in this appendix give commands that "start" the package. This startup information has the following meanings: If the package implements a major mode, the startup command is the function that puts Emacs into this major mode. If the package implements a major mode that is automatically loaded when you visit a file with a certain suffix, we list "suffix suffixname" in addition to the startup command. If the package implements a minor mode, the startup command is the function that puts Emacs into this minor mode. If the package implements a set of general-purpose functions, we've tried to pick the most "typical" of these functions. For example, the studly package implements three commands. We arbitrarily picked studlify-region as one way to invoke this package. If there isn't any reasonable choice, we list "many."
Finally, a word on using the packages. Some packages are automatically loaded when Emacs starts; some are loaded when you visit a file with the appropriate suffix (such as many of the modes for programming languages); some are automatically loaded whenever you give the appropriate command (for example, M-x shell Enter loads the package shell.el for shell-mode); and some are never automatically loaded. So how do you know which is which? You don't really have to concern yourself with this issue. In the tables, the Startup column tells you what command (or commands) put the package to work. Start Emacs, and give this command (M-x startup-command Enter). If Emacs complains no match, the package wasn't loaded automatically and you need to load the package "by hand." To do so during an Emacs session, use the command M-x load-library name Enter, where the package's "name" is given in the first column of the table. You can also tell Emacs to load packages automatically at startup time by putting lines in your .emacs file that have this form: (load-library "name")
Finally, if you're interested in looking at the source code of the libraries, which can be a great way to pick up techniques as you develop skills in programming Emacs Lisp, check out the find-library-file function presented in Chapter 11. Now, without further ado, here are the tables of Lisp packages. Table B-1. Support for Java, C, and C++ programming| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
cc-mode
| Major mode for editing Java, C, C++ and Objective-C source files | java-mode, c-mode, c++-mode, objc-mode, suffixes .java, .c, .h, .y, .lex, .cc, .hh, .C, .H, .cpp, .cxx, .hxx, .c++, .h++ | cmacexp
| Function for using cpp to expand macros in C source code | c-macro-expand | hideif
| Minor mode for hiding code within C preprocessor commands | hide-ifdef-mode | cpp
| Major mode for highlighting and hiding code within C preprocessor conditionals; takes advantage of graphical displays | cpp-parse-edit |
Table B-2. Support for Lisp programming| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
lisp-mode
| Major modes for Lisp, Emacs Lisp and Lisp interaction | lisp-mode, emacs-lisp-mode, lisp-interaction-mode, suffixes .l, .lisp, .lsp, .ml, .el, and others[1] | scheme
| Major mode for editing Scheme source files | scheme-mode, suffixes .scm, .stk, .ss, .sch, .oak | cl
| Functions and macros for Emacs Lisp compatibility with Common Lisp | many | debug
| Major mode for debugging Emacs Lisp programs | debug, automatically invoked if an error occurs running code when debug-on-error is not nil | edebug
| Emacs Lisp debugging functionality, implemented as a minor mode | edebug | disass
| Function to disassemble compiled Emacs Lisp code | disassemble | elp
| Code profiler for Emacs Lisp | elp-instrument-package, elp-instrument-function | trace
| Produces function call traces for Emacs Lisp | trace-function |
[1] Emacs Lisp mode is also invoked for files named .emacs or _emacs. In the default configuration, Lisp Interaction mode is used by the initial *scratch* buffer.
Table B-3. Support for other programming tasks and languages| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
gud
| Major mode for working with many different debuggers including jdb, gdb, sdb, dbx, xdb, perldb, pdb (Python), and bash | jdb, bashdb, gdb, and many others | perl-mode
| Major mode for working with Perl source | perl-mode, suffixes .pl, .pm, .perl, .al, and capitalized variants | cperl-mode
| Major mode for working with Perl source, which many prefer to the older Perl mode | cperl-mode, suffixes .pl, .pm, .perl, .al, and capitalized variants | python
| Major mode for editing Python source files | python-mode, suffix .py | tcl
| Major mode for editing TCL source files | tcl-mode, suffixes .tcl, .exp, .itcl, .itk | sql
| Major mode for editing SQL queries | sql-mode, suffix .sql | ada-mode
| Major mode for editing Ada source files | ada-mode, suffixes .ada, .adb, .ads, .adb.dg, .ads.dg | pascal
| Major mode for editing Pascal source files | pascal-mode, suffixes .p, .pas | modula2
| Major mode for editing Modula-2 source code | modula-2-mode | fortran
| Major mode for editing Fortran source files | fortran-mode, suffixes .f, .F, .for | f90
| Major mode for editing source code in the Fortran 90 dialect | f90-mode, suffixes .f90, .f95 | asm-mode
| Major mode for editing assembly language source code | asm-mode, suffixes .s, .S, .asm | awk-mode
| Major mode for editing awk code | awk-mode, suffix .awk | m4-mode
| Major mode for editing m4 macro source | m4-mode, suffixes .m4, .mc | ps-mode
| Major mode for editing PostScript code | ps-mode, suffixes .ps, .eps, with any capitalization | compile
| Major mode for compiling programs (often through make or ant) and allowing easy access to the source lines on which errors are reported | compile |
Table B-4. Support for Text Processing| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
text-mode
| Major mode for editing unprocessed text files | text-mode, suffixes .txt, .text, .article, .letter, and files starting with /tmp/Re, Message and a digit (mail), /tmp/fol (news) | sgml-mode
| Major mode for editing structured documents (including HTML and XML)[2] | html-mode, xml-mode, sgml-mode, suffixes .htm, .html, .shtml, .xml, .xsl, .dtd, .sgm, .sgml | tex-mode
| Major mode for editing TEX and LATEX files | tex-mode, latex-mode, suffixes .tex, .ins, .TeX, .ltx, .sty, .cls, .clo, .bbl | bibtex
| Major mode for editing bibliography files | bibtex-mode, suffix .bib | refbib
| Convert bibliography files in refer format to bibtex format | r2b-convert-buffer | nroff
| Major mode for editing nroff and troff text files | nroff-mode, suffixes .mm, .me, .ms, .man, or any digit following a period (manual page source) | scribe
| Major mode for editing Scribe text files | scribe-mode, suffix .mss |
[2] See Chapter 8 for an extensive discussion of working with markup languages in Emacs.
Table B-5. Emulations for other editors| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
vi
| Major mode for emulating the vi editor | vi-mode | vip
| Another major mode for emulating vi | vip-mode | edt
| Function to set key bindings to emulate the VAX/VMS EDT editor | edt-emulation-on |
Table B-6. Interfaces to operating system utilities[3]| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
shell
| Major mode for interacting with the command-line shell. | shell-mode | find-dired
| Run the find command and use dired on the resulting list of files. | find-dired | tar-mode
| Access files inside a tar archive through a dired-like interface. | tar-mode, suffix .tar | arc-mode
| Access files in several other archive formats through a dired-like interface. | archive-mode, suffixes .arc, .zip, .lzh, .zoo, .ear, .jar, .war, as well as capitalized variants; .sxd, .sxm, .sxi, .sxc, .sxw | lpr
| Print the contents of a buffer or region. | lpr-buffer, print-buffer, lpr-region, print-region | sort
| Sort the contents of a buffer. | sort-columns, sort-fields, sort-lines, sort-numeric-fields, sort-paragraphs, sort-regexp-fields | spell, ispell
| Various tools for checking spelling. | See Chapter 3 | diff, ediff
| Tools to help in comparing files. | See Chapter 12 |
[3] Some of these will be useful on Windows only if you've installed a Unix compatibility package like Cygwin (see http://www.cygwin.com).
Table B-7. Networking support| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
ange-ftp
| Provides transparent access to remote files via FTP | most standard file-handling commands | url
| Functions for retrieving the contents of documents through URLs | Invoked from Lisp code, not interactively | quickurl
| Functions for looking up and adding URLs to documents | many commands beginning with quickurl | talk
| A multi-user talk package that runs in Emacs | talk-connect | eudc
| A unified directory client for looking up address information from LDAP, BBDB, CCSO PH/QU and other directory servers | eudc-mode | net-utils
| Provides access to common network utility programs (ping, traceroute, netstat, etc. | ping, traceroute, netstat, etc. |
Table B-8. Games and amusements| Package | Description | Startup |
|---|
animate
| Draws animated text. | animate-birthday-present | blackbox
| Major mode to play the Blackbox game. | blackbox-mode | decipher
| Major mode to cryptanalyze monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (break simple codes). | decipher | dissociate
| Randomly scramble text. | dissociated-press | doctor
| Major mode for playing the famous "psychoanalyst" game. | doctor | dunnet
| Major mode for playing an adventure game. | dunnet | gomoku
| Major mode for playing Gomoku. | gomoku | hanoi
| Solve the Towers of Hanoi puzzle for you. | hanoi | life
| Explore cellular automata using John Conway's "life" game rules. | life | mpuz
| Generate a random multiplication puzzle. | mpuz | snake
| Steer an animated snake towards food without hitting yourself or the walls. | snake | solitaire
| Play the peg solitaire game. | solitaire | studly
| Randomly capitalize letters for that polished, professional look. | studlify-region | tetris
| Guide falling tiles to complete rows. | tetris | yow
| Print a random quotation from Zippy the Pinhead. | yow | zone
| Rearrange your buffer in a hypnotic way. | zone |
Again, this is only a sampling of some available packages, to give you a sense of the breadth and depth of capabilities that ship with Emacs. The list isn't close to complete even with respect to what's available at this time, and new features are always being added. Your best bet is to explore for yourself using the tools mentioned at the beginning of this appendix. And don't forget to search the Web for nonstandard additions that might be just what you need for your own environment and projects! |
