27 Buffers

A buffer is a Lisp object containing text to be edited. Buffers are used to hold the contents of files that are being visited; there may also be buffers that are not visiting files. While several buffers may exist at one time, only one buffer is designated the current buffer at any time. Most editing commands act on the contents of the current buffer. Each buffer, including the current buffer, may or may not be displayed in any windows.

• Buffer Basics		What is a buffer?
• Current Buffer		Designating a buffer as current so that primitives will access its contents.
• Buffer Names		Accessing and changing buffer names.
• Buffer File Name		The buffer file name indicates which file is visited.
• Buffer Modification		A buffer is modified if it needs to be saved.
• Modification Time		Determining whether the visited file was changed behind Emacs’s back.
• Read Only Buffers		Modifying text is not allowed in a read-only buffer.
• Buffer List		How to look at all the existing buffers.
• Creating Buffers		Functions that create buffers.
• Killing Buffers		Buffers exist until explicitly killed.
• Indirect Buffers		An indirect buffer shares text with some other buffer.
• Swapping Text		Swapping text between two buffers.
• Buffer Gap		The gap in the buffer.