Info Catalog elisp: Documentation elisp: Top elisp: Backups and Auto-Saving

elisp: Files

 
 24 Files
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 This chapter describes the Emacs Lisp functions and variables to find,
 create, view, save, and otherwise work with files and directories.  A
 few other file-related functions are described in Buffers, and
 those related to backups and auto-saving are described in Backups
 and Auto-Saving.
 
    Many of the file functions take one or more arguments that are file
 names.  A file name is a string.  Most of these functions expand file
 name arguments using the function ‘expand-file-name’, so that ‘~’ is
 handled correctly, as are relative file names (including ‘../’).  
 File Name Expansion.
 
    In addition, certain “magic” file names are handled specially.  For
 example, when a remote file name is specified, Emacs accesses the file
 over the network via an appropriate protocol.  Remote Files
 (emacs)Remote Files.  This handling is done at a very low level, so you
 may assume that all the functions described in this chapter accept magic
 file names as file name arguments, except where noted.  Magic File
 Names, for details.
 
    When file I/O functions signal Lisp errors, they usually use the
 condition ‘file-error’ (Handling Errors).  The error message is
 in most cases obtained from the operating system, according to locale
 ‘system-messages-locale’, and decoded using coding system
 ‘locale-coding-system’ (Locales).
 

Menu

 
· Visiting Files           Reading files into Emacs buffers for editing.
· Saving Buffers           Writing changed buffers back into files.
· Reading from Files       Reading files into buffers without visiting.
· Writing to Files         Writing new files from parts of buffers.
· File Locks               Locking and unlocking files, to prevent
                                simultaneous editing by two people.
· Information about Files  Testing existence, accessibility, size of files.
· Changing Files           Renaming files, changing permissions, etc.
· File Names               Decomposing and expanding file names.
· Contents of Directories  Getting a list of the files in a directory.
· Create/Delete Dirs       Creating and Deleting Directories.
· Magic File Names         Special handling for certain file names.
· Format Conversion        Conversion to and from various file formats.
 

Info Catalog elisp: Documentation elisp: Top elisp: Backups and Auto-Saving