Full description
Most of the GNU Emacs text editor is written in the programming language
called Emacs Lisp. You can write new code in Emacs Lisp and install it as an
extension to the editor. However, Emacs Lisp is more than a mere "extension
language"; it is a full computer programming language in its own right. You
can use it as you would any other programming language.
Because Emacs Lisp is designed for use in an editor, it has special features
for scanning and parsing text as well as features for handling files,
buffers, displays, subprocesses, and so on. Emacs Lisp is closely integrated
with the editing facilities; thus, editing commands are functions that can
also conveniently be called from Lisp programs, and parameters for
customization are ordinary Lisp variables.
This manual attempts to be a full description of Emacs Lisp. For a
beginner's introduction to Emacs Lisp, see An Introduction to Emacs Lisp
Programming, by Bob Chassell, also published by the Free Software
Foundation. This manual presumes considerable familiarity with the use of
Emacs for editing; see The GNU Emacs Manual for this basic information.
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