Emacs Lisp Function Guide?

Question

I have been using Emacs for more than three years now but it still takes me days to write even small functions in Lisp. I\'ve looked through GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual but

Answer 1

Good suggestions from others -- Emacs help system is your friend. In addition:

• http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsNewbieWithIcicles

• http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Progressive_Completion

• http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Nutshell_View#ChippingAway

Answer 2

In order to understand what's on, quite often it's useful having a look at the source code.

http://repo.or.cz/w/elbb.git/blob/HEAD:/code/Go-to-Emacs-Lisp-Definition.el

Answer 3

Download source code for Emacs. Go to src/ folder and type:

grep -r DEFUN *

You will get list of all primitive Lisp functions of Emacs.

Answer 4

Have you tryed <f1> f ? It is bound to describe-function. Example with point:

point is a built-in function in C source code.
(point)

Return value of point, as an integer.
Beginning of buffer is position (point-min).

[back]

Like most Lisp systeme, Emacs has an integrated documentation tool!

• Any Lisp function or variable can declare an optional doc string.
• Almost all standard command or function do declare a usefull doc string.
• Emacs (like most Lisp systems) allows you to display the doc string of any function or variable (<f1> f and <f1> v) at any time.
• When displayed, the doc string is browsable, meaning that you can click on symbols to see their doc string, or go to the source of the corresponding function or variable.
• As soon as you evaluate any defun or defvar, its doc string is available through describe-function or describe-variable: this doc is alive!

Answer 5

M-x find-library RET <library name> is all you really need

Answer 6

This site has some emacs lisp summary information that may be useful: http://xahlee.org/emacs/elisp.html.

In particularly, check out these links on that page: Basic Text-editing Functions, Emacs Lisp Idioms and Batch Text Processing