Documentation of the GNU project -- Books in Print

Books in Print

An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp

by Robert J. Chassell

Emacs Lisp book cover image
320 Pages
Cover Price: $30.00
December 2001
ISBN 1-882114-43-4
Trade Paper Lay Flat Binding
On-line version
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Free Software Magazine's Book Review (PDF Format)

Emacs Lisp is a simple, complete, and powerful programming language. It is the building block of GNU Emacs, which is an integrated development environment with special features for scanning and parsing text as well as for handling multiple files, buffers, displays, windows, and sub-processors.

This book will show you:

how to set variables and write function definitions
How to use "if" and "let"
How to write "while" loops and recursive loops
how to search for a word or expression
how to customize GNU Emacs for yourself, even when it is shared on a network.
how to debug programs
and much more.

This tutorial an elementary introduction to teach non-programmers how to customize their work environment; it can also be used as an introduction to programming basics. It includes numerous exercises and sample programs; the author also walks you through the actual source code of several GNU Emacs commands. A handy reference appendix is included.

This second edition covers new features included in GNU Emacs version 21, while remaining compatible with earlier versions.

About the author:
Robert J. Chassell has worked with GNU Emacs since 1985. He writes and edits, teaches GNU Emacs and Emacs Lisp, and speaks throughout the world on software freedom. He has an abiding interest in social and economic history and flies his own airplane.

Please send comments on these web pages to webmasters@www.gnu.org, send other questions to gnu@gnu.org.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: $Date: 2006/05/01 10:04:13 $ $Author: ramprasadb $