emacs :: my first emacs-lisp function (!)
I've been finding myself in a tricky situation a lot lately: I'm programming along, and suddenly I realize that the thing I'm writing really should be factored out and named with a variable.
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page.calendar.add(Employee.username(...
"whoops, I'm going to refer to this employee again... I should have written:"
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emp = Employee.username(request.user.username)
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page.calendar.add(emp, ...
What to do? Should I finish the line I'm on and then insert a line above (from experience I know my memory is so bad I'm likely to have forgotten by the time I get to the end of the line); or should I navigate up, insert the line and then try to find my way back to where I was.
What I really needed was to be able to press C-return and magically be transported to a fresh, new, blank and properly indented line above my point. Then I could use the standard C-u C-spc to get back to where I started... After a couple of hours of reading the fine manual, here's what I came up with:
(defun insert-and-indent-line-above ()
(interactive)
(push-mark)
(let* ((ipt (progn (back-to-indentation) (point)))
(bol (progn (move-beginning-of-line 1) (point)))
(indent (buffer-substring bol ipt)))
(newline)
(previous-line)
(insert indent)))
(global-set-key [ (control return) ] 'insert-and-indent-line-above)
it brought me great satisfaction (even though I realize there is probably a much simpler and more elegant way to do this).