All About Emacs Macros

Emacs macros allow you to record a repetitive sequence of keystrokes, so they can be replayed. It's a pretty basic and useful emacs skill, but there are a couple of commands related to macros that can make them even more useful to you.

To record a macro, type "C-x (" (if you're new to emacs, C-x means "control-x"; M-x means "meta-x", usually entered by holding down the "Alt" key while pressing "x"). Then everything you type will be recorded until you type "C-x )". The string "Def" appears in the emacs status line while the macro is being recorded. Macro recording is aborted by any error operation -- basically anything that makes the bell ring.

Macros can contain any sequence of keystrokes, including control and meta characters (hence searches and other commands). After you type "C-x )", your macro can be replayed by typing "C-x e". If your macro is such that it leaves the cursor in a place where it makes sense to run the macro again, you can run many iterations of the macro by using a prefix argument. For example, to run the macro 100 times, type "C-u 1 0 0 C-x e".

Saving Macros

One good thing often leads to another, and sometimes you find yourself wanting to use two macros at the same time. No problem, the command "M-x name-last-kbd-macro" lets you give a name to a macro that you've entered. Then, instead of typing "C-x e" you type "M-x" and the name you gave your macro.

If you have a macro that you think will be useful to you again and again, you can save it in your .emacs file. Name the macro, then open your .emacs file, and run "M-x insert-kbd-macro". Lisp code which defines and names your macro is written into the file, so the command will be available to you forever.

Editing macros

Sometimes you go to a lot of effort to record a macro but you have one typo in it, or can make it more useful by tweaking it a little. In that case, there is a way to edit either a named or unnamed keyboard macro. Just use "M-x edit-named-kbd-macro" or "M-x edit-last-kbd-macro".