Next: Object from Minibuffer, Previous: Intro to Minibuffers, Up: Minibuffers [Contents][Index]
The most basic primitive for minibuffer input is
read-from-minibuffer
, which can be used to read either a string
or a Lisp object in textual form. The function read-regexp
is
used for reading regular expressions (see Regular Expressions),
which are a special kind of string. There are also specialized
functions for reading commands, variables, file names, etc.
(see Completion).
In most cases, you should not call minibuffer input functions in the
middle of a Lisp function. Instead, do all minibuffer input as part of
reading the arguments for a command, in the interactive
specification. See Defining Commands.
This function is the most general way to get input from the
minibuffer. By default, it accepts arbitrary text and returns it as a
string; however, if read is non-nil
, then it uses
read
to convert the text into a Lisp object (see Input Functions).
The first thing this function does is to activate a minibuffer and display it with prompt (which must be a string) as the prompt. Then the user can edit text in the minibuffer.
When the user types a command to exit the minibuffer,
read-from-minibuffer
constructs the return value from the text in
the minibuffer. Normally it returns a string containing that text.
However, if read is non-nil
, read-from-minibuffer
reads the text and returns the resulting Lisp object, unevaluated.
(See Input Functions, for information about reading.)
The argument default specifies default values to make available
through the history commands. It should be a string, a list of
strings, or nil
. The string or strings become the minibuffer’s
“future history”, available to the user with M-n.
If read is non-nil
, then default is also used
as the input to read
, if the user enters empty input.
If default is a list of strings, the first string is used as the input.
If default is nil
, empty input results in an end-of-file
error.
However, in the usual case (where read is nil
),
read-from-minibuffer
ignores default when the user enters
empty input and returns an empty string, ""
. In this respect,
it differs from all the other minibuffer input functions in this chapter.
If keymap is non-nil
, that keymap is the local keymap to
use in the minibuffer. If keymap is omitted or nil
, the
value of minibuffer-local-map
is used as the keymap. Specifying
a keymap is the most important way to customize the minibuffer for
various applications such as completion.
The argument history specifies a history list variable to use
for saving the input and for history commands used in the minibuffer.
It defaults to minibuffer-history
. You can optionally specify
a starting position in the history list as well. See Minibuffer History.
If the variable minibuffer-allow-text-properties
is
non-nil
, then the string that is returned includes whatever text
properties were present in the minibuffer. Otherwise all the text
properties are stripped when the value is returned.
If the argument inherit-input-method is non-nil
, then the
minibuffer inherits the current input method (see Input Methods) and
the setting of enable-multibyte-characters
(see Text Representations) from whichever buffer was current before entering the
minibuffer.
Use of initial is mostly deprecated; we recommend using
a non-nil
value only in conjunction with specifying a cons cell
for history. See Initial Input.
This function reads a string from the minibuffer and returns it. The
arguments prompt, initial, history and
inherit-input-method are used as in read-from-minibuffer
.
The keymap used is minibuffer-local-map
.
The optional argument default is used as in
read-from-minibuffer
, except that, if non-nil
, it also
specifies a default value to return if the user enters null input. As
in read-from-minibuffer
it should be a string, a list of
strings, or nil
, which is equivalent to an empty string. When
default is a string, that string is the default value. When it
is a list of strings, the first string is the default value. (All
these strings are available to the user in the “future minibuffer
history”.)
This function works by calling the
read-from-minibuffer
function:
(read-string prompt initial history default inherit) ≡ (let ((value (read-from-minibuffer prompt initial nil nil history default inherit))) (if (and (equal value "") default) (if (consp default) (car default) default) value))
This function reads a regular expression as a string from the minibuffer and returns it. If the minibuffer prompt string prompt does not end in ‘:’ (followed by optional whitespace), the function adds ‘: ’ to the end, preceded by the default return value (see below), if that is non-empty.
The optional argument defaults controls the default value to
return if the user enters null input, and should be one of: a string;
nil
, which is equivalent to an empty string; a list of strings;
or a symbol.
If defaults is a symbol, read-regexp
consults the value
of the variable read-regexp-defaults-function
(see below), and
if that is non-nil
uses it in preference to defaults.
The value in this case should be either:
regexp-history-last
, which means to use the first element of
the appropriate minibuffer history list (see below).
nil
, a string, or a list of strings) becomes the value of
defaults.
read-regexp
now ensures that the result of processing
defaults is a list (i.e., if the value is nil
or a
string, it converts it to a list of one element). To this list,
read-regexp
then appends a few potentially useful candidates for
input. These are:
The function now has a list of regular expressions that it passes to
read-from-minibuffer
to obtain the user’s input. The first
element of the list is the default result in case of empty input. All
elements of the list are available to the user as the “future
minibuffer history list” (see future list in The GNU Emacs Manual).
The optional argument history, if non-nil
, is a symbol
specifying a minibuffer history list to use (see Minibuffer History). If it is omitted or nil
, the history list defaults
to regexp-history
.
The function read-regexp
may use the value of this variable to
determine its list of default regular expressions. If non-nil
,
the value of this variable should be either:
regexp-history-last
.
nil
, a string,
or a list of strings.
See read-regexp
above for details of how these values are used.
If this variable is nil
, then read-from-minibuffer
and read-string
strip all text properties from the minibuffer
input before returning it. However,
read-no-blanks-input
(see below), as well as
read-minibuffer
and related functions (see Reading Lisp Objects With the Minibuffer), and all
functions that do minibuffer input with completion, discard text
properties unconditionally, regardless of the value of this variable.
This is the default local keymap for reading from the minibuffer. By default, it makes the following bindings:
exit-minibuffer
exit-minibuffer
abort-recursive-edit
next-history-element
previous-history-element
next-matching-history-element
previous-matching-history-element
This function reads a string from the minibuffer, but does not allow
whitespace characters as part of the input: instead, those characters
terminate the input. The arguments prompt, initial, and
inherit-input-method are used as in read-from-minibuffer
.
This is a simplified interface to the read-from-minibuffer
function, and passes the value of the minibuffer-local-ns-map
keymap as the keymap argument for that function. Since the keymap
minibuffer-local-ns-map
does not rebind C-q, it is
possible to put a space into the string, by quoting it.
This function discards text properties, regardless of the value of
minibuffer-allow-text-properties
.
(read-no-blanks-input prompt initial) ≡ (let (minibuffer-allow-text-properties) (read-from-minibuffer prompt initial minibuffer-local-ns-map))
This built-in variable is the keymap used as the minibuffer local keymap
in the function read-no-blanks-input
. By default, it makes the
following bindings, in addition to those of minibuffer-local-map
:
exit-minibuffer
exit-minibuffer
self-insert-and-exit
Next: Object from Minibuffer, Previous: Intro to Minibuffers, Up: Minibuffers [Contents][Index]