This section describes the functions normally used to visit files. For historical reasons, these functions have names starting with `find-' rather than `visit-'. See section Buffer File Name, for functions and variables that access the visited file name of a buffer or that find an existing buffer by its visited file name.
In a Lisp program, if you want to look at the contents of a file but
not alter it, the fastest way is to use insert-file-contents
in a
temporary buffer. Visiting the file is not necessary and takes longer.
See section Reading from Files.
The body of the find-file
function is very simple and looks
like this:
(switch-to-buffer (find-file-noselect filename))
(See switch-to-buffer
in section Displaying Buffers in Windows.)
When find-file
is called interactively, it prompts for
filename in the minibuffer.
When find-file-noselect
uses an existing buffer, it first
verifies that the file has not changed since it was last visited or
saved in that buffer. If the file has changed, then this function asks
the user whether to reread the changed file. If the user says
`yes', any changes previously made in the buffer are lost.
If find-file-noselect
needs to create a buffer, and there is no
file named filename, it displays the message `New file' in
the echo area, and leaves the buffer empty.
The find-file-noselect
function calls after-find-file
after reading the file (see section Subroutines of Visiting). That function
sets the buffer major mode, parses local variables, warns the user if
there exists an auto-save file more recent than the file just visited,
and finishes by running the functions in find-file-hooks
.
The find-file-noselect
function returns the buffer that is
visiting the file filename.
(find-file-noselect "/etc/fstab") => #<buffer fstab>
When this command is called interactively, it prompts for filename.
find-file
, but it marks the buffer as read-only. See section Read-Only Buffers, for related functions and variables.
When this command is called interactively, it prompts for filename.
view-mode-hook
. See section Hooks.
When view-file
is called interactively, it prompts for
filename.
This variable works just like a normal hook, but we think that renaming it would not be advisable.
find-file
or find-file-noselect
is passed a nonexistent
file name. find-file-noselect
calls these functions as soon as
it detects a nonexistent file. It calls them in the order of the list,
until one of them returns non-nil
. buffer-file-name
is
already set up.
This is not a normal hook because the values of the functions are used and they may not all be called.
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