EmacsWiki: Abbrev Mode

Defining Abbrevs

Type the word you want to use as expansion, and then type C-x a g and the abbreviation for it. Example:

    t h e C-x a g t e h RET

Unfortunately, if you wanted to abbreviate Read The Fine Manual with RTFM, you couldn’t just type C-x a g after “Read the Fine Manual”. Emacs would ask you for an abbreviation for Manual. A simple solution is to use a numeric prefix. Note how many words you want to be part of the expansion, and then use C-u 4 C-x a g after “Read the Fine Manual” – four words.

Saving Abbrevs

Use M-x write-abbrev-file and just hit RET when asked for a filename. The default is ~/.abbrev_defs. In the future, Emacs should save the abbrevs automatically when you quit Emacs.

You may not want to use ~/.abbrev_defs as your abbrev file. I use the following in my .emacs code to store my abbrevs in .emacs.d

  (setq abbrev-file-name             ;; tell emacs where to read abbrev
        "~/.emacs.d/abbrev_defs")    ;; definitions from...

Also, if you want abbreviations to be saved whenever you save files (C-x s) or quit emacs, add the following to your .emacs:

  (setq save-abbrevs 'silently)        ;; save abbrevs when files are saved

Restoring Abbrevs

Emacs reads abbrevs from ‘abbrev-file-name’ on startup, if it exists.

If you want to read your abbrev file at a different time, or from a different file you can call ‘read-abbrev-file’ or ‘quietly-read-abbrev-file’.

Using Abbrevs

M-x abbrev-mode toggles Abbrev mode. You can also put the following in your ~/.emacs file if you want it always on:

    (setq-default abbrev-mode t)

If you only want it on in text and derived modes, you could do something like this:

    (add-hook 'text-mode-hook #'abbrev-mode)

For multiple modes, use something like the following:

    (dolist (hook '(erc-mode-hook
                    emacs-lisp-mode-hook
                    text-mode-hook))
      (add-hook hook #'abbrev-mode))

Using Abbrevs in Code Only

VisualBasicMode does a nifty trick that checks its syntactic content and only expands abbrevs when in code (i.e. make your comments NOT show capitalization you do NOT expect - yow can do that FOR you 😊). You can add a similar snippet of code to the pre-abbrev-expand-hook and then get, for instance, SQL keywords all capitalized, but readable comments.

     (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
       (lambda ()
         (add-hook 'pre-abbrev-expand-hook #'sql-pre-abbrev-expand-hook nil t)
         (abbrev-mode 1)))

And build a hook:

(defun sql-in-code-context-p ()
  (if (fboundp 'buffer-syntactic-context) ; XEmacs function.
       (null (buffer-syntactic-context))
     ;; Attempt to simulate buffer-syntactic-context
     ;; I don't know how reliable this is.
     (let* ((beg (save-excursion
 		  (beginning-of-line)
 		  (point)))
 	   (list
 	    (parse-partial-sexp beg (point))))
       (and (null (nth 3 list))		; inside string.
 	   (null (nth 4 list))))))	; inside cocmment

(defun sql-pre-abbrev-expand-hook ()
  ;; Allow our abbrevs only in a code context.
  (setq local-abbrev-table
	(if (sql-in-code-context-p)
	    sql-mode-abbrev-table)))

Example .abbrev_defs File

Amongst many define-abbrev-table statements, you’ll find a statement for the global-abbrev-table. Here is mine:

    (define-abbrev-table 'global-abbrev-table '(
	("afaict" "as far as I can tell" nil 1)
	("omuse" "http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/oddmuse.pl" nil 0)
	("btw" "by the way" nil 3)
	("wether" "whether" nil 5)
	("ewiki" "http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl" nil 3)
	("pov" "point of view" nil 1)
	))

Abbrev with Hooking

If you prefer that the expansion character not be inserted, you can use a hook that returns non-nil (example here for latex-mode)

  (defun dont-insert-expansion-char ()  t)    ;; this is the "hook" function
  (put 'dont-insert-expansion-char 'no-self-insert t)   ;; the hook should have a "no-self-insert"-property set 
  
  (define-abbrev-table 'latex-mode-abbrev-table   '(
      ("em" "\\emph{" dont-insert-expansion-char 0)

I’m wanting to write a Macro/Abbrev in Emacs/XEmacs so that when I type sout Emacs automatically replaces it with System.out.println(”|”) and positions the TextCursor in between the quotes. A simple Abbrev gets me the replace, but how can I get it to reposition the cursor?? I realise this may not be the best place to ask these sorts of questions, is there a page on this wiki for such things?

You, sir, are after SkeletonMode, or Yasnippet; abbrev-mode can only expand the text preceding point, while these provide more sophisticated template functionality.

Here’s a simple answer: use tempo for that. In case, you don’t want the hustle and bustle of that here’s how i accomplished that. You can add hooker function to be executed after the expansion. But to prevent the SPACE inserting after the expansion the hooker function should be named and have a property ‘no-self-insert. Here’s a little bit of EmacsLisp code to hack it up.

     ;;; new macro declare-abbrevs -- similar to define-abbrev-table
     (require 'cl)
     (defvar my-abbrev-tables nil)
     (defun my-abbrev-hook ()
       (let ((def (assoc (symbol-name last-abbrev) my-abbrev-tables)))
         (when def
           (execute-kbd-macro (cdr def)))
         t))
     (put 'my-abbrev-hook 'no-self-insert t)
     (defmacro declare-abbrevs (table abbrevs)
       (if (consp table)
           `(progn ,@(loop for tab in table
                           collect `(declare-abbrevs ,tab ,abbrevs)))
         `(progn
            ,@(loop for abbr in abbrevs
                    do (when (third abbr)
                         (push (cons (first abbr) (read-kbd-macro (third abbr)))
                               my-abbrev-tables))
                    collect `(define-abbrev ,table
                               ,(first abbr) ,(second abbr) ,(and (third abbr)
                                                                  ''my-abbrev-hook))))))
     (put 'declare-abbrevs 'lisp-indent-function 2)

Now you can add your abbrev definitions like this:

    ;;; sample abbrev definitions
    (eval-after-load "cc-mode"
      '(declare-abbrevs (c-mode-abbrev-table c++-mode-abbrev-table)
           (("#s"    "#include <>" "C-b")
            ("#i"    "#include \"\"" "C-b")
            ("#ifn"  "#ifndef")
            ("#e"    "#endif /* */" "C-3 C-b")
            ("#ifd"  "#ifdef")
            ("imain" "int\nmain (int ac, char **av[])\n{\n\n}" "C-p TAB")
            ("if"    "if () {\n}\n" "C-M-b C-M-q C-- C-M-d")
            ("else"  "else {\n}\n"  "C-M-b C-M-q C-M-d RET")
            ("while" "while () {\n}\n" "C-M-b C-M-q C-- C-M-d")
            ("for"   "for (;;) {\n}\n" "C-M-b C-M-q C-M-b C-M-d")
            ("pr"    "printf (\"\")" "C-2 C-b"))))

    (eval-after-load "jde"
      '(declare-abbrevs (java-mode-abbrev-table jde-mode-abbrev-table)
           (("pp"   "System.out.print ()" "C-b")
            ("psvm" "public static void main(String[] args) {\n\n}" "C-p TAB C-h")
             ("pl"   "System.out.println ()" "C-b")
            ("pr"   "System.out.print ()" "C-b"))))

The third column is a series of keystrokes you should have issued after the expansion. Hope this helps! – JaeyounChung

even quicker:

  (autoload 'expand-abbrev-hook "expand")
  (define-abbrev-table 'java-mode-abbrev-table '(
    ("sout" ["System.out.println(\"\")" 2 () nil] expand-abbrev-hook 0)))

The 2 determines the cursor position. – nschum

defun with abbrev

(defun define-abbrev-function (table abbrev func)
  (put func 'no-self-insert t)
  (define-abbrev table abbrev "" `(lambda () (call-interactively ',func)))
)

(defmacro defun-abbrev (funcname abbrev &rest body)
  "Defun a function and define an abbrev.
Note that `table' is abbrev table to use."
  `(progn
     (defun ,funcname ,@body)
     (define-abbrev-function table ,abbrev ',funcname)))

I use this macro to define abbrev with command. – rubikitch

Was it just my imagination, or wasn’t there a way to have abbrevs run elisp code? I thought there was a way to specify that in edit-abbrevs?

yes - ‘M-x edit-abbrevs’ shows a list of abbrevs, their replacements, and a lisp function to run - I use this to activate tempo expansions

Abbrev Prefixes

If you find yourself editing a lot of scientific articles (or even if you don’t), you might find the ‘abbrev-prefix-mark’ (M-') command useful. Basically, this lets you expand one or more abbrevs within a word. This is most useful when you’re dealing with a lot of jargon or technical terms that have multiple and lengthy morphemes, prefixes, or suffixes.

For example, you might have an abbrev em that expands to electromagnetic, but what about if you find yourself typing a lot of similar terms as well: electrochemical, electrolysis, biochemical, and so on? You can then define abbrevs for electro(‘el’), magnetic(‘mag’), and chemical(‘chem’). So instead of typing “electromagnetic” you would type: el M-' mag; and emacs will expand it to “electromagnetic”. Similarly: el M-' chem; expands to “electrochemical”. You can type: bio M-' chem; expands to biochemical, and so on. Try it, it works.

– parolang

Buffer local abbrevs

The following function allows you to make buffer local abbrevs that are not shared by other buffers with the same major-mode:

(defun set-local-abbrevs (abbrevs)
  "Add ABBREVS to `local-abbrev-table' and make it buffer local.
ABBREVS should be a list of abbrevs as passed to `define-abbrev-table'.
The `local-abbrev-table' will be replaced by a copy with the new abbrevs added,
so that it is not the same as the abbrev table used in other buffers with the
same `major-mode'."
  (let* ((bufname (buffer-name))
         (prefix (substring (md5 bufname) 0 (length bufname)))
         (tblsym (intern (concat prefix "-abbrev-table"))))
    (set tblsym (copy-abbrev-table local-abbrev-table))
    (dolist (abbrev abbrevs)
      (define-abbrev (eval tblsym)
        (cl-first abbrev)
        (cl-second abbrev)
        (cl-third abbrev)))
    (setq-local local-abbrev-table (eval tblsym))))

you call it like this:

(set-local-abbrevs '(("tr" "try it out" nil) ("co" "cool huh?" nil)))

– JoeBloggs

Invoke abbrev expansion with two spaces

Original conversation on stack exchange

By invoking abbrev expansion with two space instead of one, you can use more common abbrevs like “alpha” and not worry about getting “α” when you really want “alpha”: two space expands, one space doesn’t do anything.

The easy way is to bind this function to space key:

(defun insert-space-or-expand-abbrev ()
  "Expand abbrev if previous char is a space, or insert a space."
  (interactive)
  (if (not (equal (char-before) ?\s))
      (insert-char ?\s)
    (backward-char)
    (unless (expand-abbrev)
      (insert-char ?\s))
    (forward-char)))

(global-set-key " " #'luna-insert-space-or-expand-abbrev)

However, as Stefan mentioned on stack exchange, this binding risks to conflict with modes that does special things with space key. He pointed out that one can use ‘post-self-insert-hook’ instead of rebinding space key.

– YuanFu

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