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6.8.4 Editing Word Abbrevs

Word abbrev definition lists are edited by editing the text representation of the definitions. Word abbrev files may be edited directly, like any other text file. The set of abbrevs currently defined in Hemlock may be edited using the commands described in this section.

The text representation of a word abbrev is fairly simple. Each definition begins at the beginning of a line. Each line has three fields which are separated by ASCII tab characters. The fields are the abbreviation, the mode of the abbreviation and the expansion. The mode is represented as the mode name inside of parentheses. If the abbrev is global, then the mode field is empty. The expansion is represented as a quoted string since it may contain any character. The string is quoted with double-quotes ("); double-quotes in the expansion are represented by doubled double-quotes. The expansion may contain newline characters, in which case the definition will take up more than one line.

Command: Edit Word Abbrevs ¶

This command inserts the current word abbrev definitions into the Edit Word Abbrevs buffer and then enters a recursive edit on the buffer. When the recursive edit is exited, the definitions in the buffer become the new current abbrev definitions.

Command: Insert Word Abbrevs ¶

This command inserts at the point the text representation of the currently defined word abbrevs.

Command: Define Word Abbrevs ¶

This command interprets the text of the current buffer as a word abbrev definition list, adding all the definitions to those currently defined.