Matching braces in Emacs

Question

In GNU Emacs there is a feature to highlight matching brackets in code with the same colour.

However when the code which the brackets enclose is really long with severa

Answer 1

(defun px-match-paren (arg)
  "Go to the matching paren if on a paren; otherwise insert <key>."
  (interactive "p")
  (cond
   ((char-equal 41 (char-before)) (backward-list 1))
   ((char-equal 125 (char-before)) (backward-list 1))
   ((and
     (char-equal 123 (char-before))
     (char-equal 10 (char-after)))
    (backward-char 1) (forward-list 1))
   ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1))
   ((looking-at "\\s\)") (backward-list 1))
   (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1)))))

The <key> to witch you bind this command will toggle opening and closing brace if point is before or after it, otherwise insert <key> (much like vi's "%")

I also bind C-<key> to forward-sexp and C-S-<key> to backward-sexp so I can really quickly navigate through functions in the file.

Answer 2

Try mic paren which shows matching parenthesis code even if found outside the present screen.

Answer 3

backward-sexp is what I use. bound to ESC-left. Then ESC-right to get back to where you were

Answer 4

This is actually a very standard binding: C-M-f and C-M-b to go back and forwards by default. In most modes C-M-f will take you forwards to the matching brace and C-M-b will take you backwards to the matching brace. This also works for things like quotes, pretty much the same way.

These bindings are easy to remember if you already use C-f and C-b for navigation. (If you don't, you should.) They're just like moving forward and backwards by a character lifted to moving by expression (which depends on mode).

Answer 5

The first thing that might help is knowing about this option, if you don't already: blink-matching-paren-distance. If the sexp is very large then you need to increase the option value, or else paren matching gives up too soon and it shows a mismatch when there is no mismatch.

The second thing that can help is to be sure that blink-matching-paren and blink-matching-paren-on-screen are both non-nil. Then, to see the opening delimiter, just delete the closing delimiter and then type it again. When you insert it, the opening one will be made evident.