Re: elisp problem!

[Kai Grossjohann]

"hans nieuwenhuizen" <hans@nieuwenhuizen-jk.nl> writes:

> I use emacs 21.2.1, have studied Cameron and Glickstein, and read most of
> elisp-manual-21-2-7, emacs-lisp-intro-2.04, elisp-20.2.5, as well as the
> underlying .texi files for searching subjects, but did not find even a
> suggestion how to solve my problems. I have asked for a quotation for
> the printed version but not yet received it and I would very much appreciate
> to receive a hint from you how to solve this, or --- better --- hear what
> books may contain what I need.

Quite often, Emacs already has a package for what you want.  For
example, see the Autotype manual (C-h i d m Autotype RET) for
automatically inserting stuff.

> After an update I want emacs to change the 'Lastedit" date

Emacs comes with time-stamp.el which is reasonably easy to use.
However, by default it expects a somewhat different format of the
given line.  But time-stamp.el is configurable so you can get
something that's closer to your format, at least.

> and write the old date with a leading "Intermediate comment" lined
> up wth the others under 'Changelog".

Hm.  Writing the old date does not automatically work.  Hm.  What to
do?

In any case, the indent-new-comment-line function is proably useful
for inserting the ChangeLog stuff.

Another way to get a similar effect is to use a revision control
system, such as RCS.  With RCS, you put $Log$ into the file and then
RCS will take care of automatically writing the log message at that
spot.  Of course, this requires you to type C-x v v to create a new
version, but I hope that's not too terrible.  As an added value, you
get access to old versions.

Kai