Learning GNU Emacs, Second Edition

Emacs LISP Packages

Emacs contains lots of LISP code; in fact, as we will see in Chapter 13, the majority of Emacs’ built-in functionality is written in LISP. Emacs also comes with several extra LISP packages (also known as libraries) that you can bring in (or load) to add more features. LISP packages are being added to Emacs all the time, and sometimes your system administrator will add packages obtained from sources other than the Free Software Foundation.

Therefore, we have included a table of the most useful built-in LISP packages, along with explanations of how to use them, in Appendix D. You can also get information about which packages are available on your system by typing C-h p (for finder-by-keyword). Briefly, Emacs’ built-in packages do the following kinds of things:

• Support programming in C, LISP, Perl, FORTRAN, and several other languages (see Chapter 12).

• Support word processing with nroff, troff, T_EX, L_AT_EX, and HTML (see Chapter 9).

• Emulate other editors (vi, EDT, and Gosling Emacs).

• Interface to UNIX utilities, such as the shell and mail (see Chapter 5 and Chapter 6) as well as FTP, Telnet, Kermit, and the MH mail system.

• Provide editing support functions, such as spell checking ( Chapter 3) and outline editing (Chapter 8) as well as text sorting, command history editing, Emacs variable setting (Appendix C), and much more.

• Play various games and provide other forms of amusement.

See Appendix D for more details.