I'm trying to create a function that inserts text into an arbitrary file without switching to that file's buffer.
I know this could be done with echo, but is there a way to do it using only elisp?
Mac – How to get emacs to insert text into an arbitrary file
elispemacs
Related Solutions
Aliases are a shell-specific concept, so bash aliases don't carry over to eshell. Eshell has its own alias system, documented in comments near the top of em-alias.el. In a nutshell, you define aliases with the alias commands, and they are stored automatically for future sessions. The syntax is not the same as bash, for example you would write alias l='ls -l $*' in eshell where you write alias ls='ls -l' in bash. Alias definitions live in a file called ~/.eshell/alias where "~/.eshell" is the value of eshell-directory-name.
Eshell also has a shell function system, documented in comments near the top of esh-cmd.el. Quoting the first paragraph:
Whenever a command is specified using a simple name, such as 'ls', Eshell will first look for a Lisp function of the name `eshell/ls'. If it exists, it will be called in preference to any other command which might have matched the name 'ls' (such as command aliases, external commands, Lisp functions of that name, etc).
Here is a fast-and-filthy elisp function that could be modified as you may wish.
(defun subtree-to-new-file ()
(interactive)
"sloppily assists in moving an org subtree to a new file"
(org-copy-subtree nil t)
;;; This long setq statement gets the title of the first heading, to use as a default filename for the new .org file.
(setq first-heading
(with-temp-buffer
(yank)
(beginning-of-buffer)
(search-forward " " nil nil 1)
(setq title-start (point))
(end-of-visual-line)
(setq title-end (point))
(setq first-heading (buffer-substring title-start title-end))
))
(setq def-filename (concat first-heading ".org"))
(let ((insert-default-directory t))
(find-file-other-window
(read-file-name "Move subtree to file:" def-filename)
))
(org-paste-subtree)
;;; this final command adds the new .org file to the agenda
(org-agenda-file-to-front)
)
You can give this code a quick try by pasting into your *scratch* buffer and hitting Ctrl+j. Then go to a subtree in an org-mode file and hit Alt+x to M-x subtree-to-new-file.
If you want it to be in place every time you use emacs and are completely unfamliar with elisp, the easiest thing might be to also paste this code somewhere into your .emacs configuration file and save it. You can also add a line before or after the function to give it a keybinding. The easiest way to do that (but maybe not the best) would be something like: (global-set-key "\C-xw" 'subtree-to-new-file).
Best Answer
Try this function: