what is this called?

[Mike Ballard]

If I put "-*-Shell-script-*-" at the top of a file I get shell-script mode
which gives me suitable coloring for ordinary text files where I like to
use "#" to gray-out unimportant lines; these files are plain text and are
not any kind of shell scripts; I'm just using shell-script mode for its
color treatment.

The problem is \C-c \C-c in shell-script mode is a binding that conflicts
w/the editing of these plain text files; so I thought I'd look for another
mode where I can get shell-script mode style coloring but w/o that
binding.  But I don't know what "-*-Shell-script-*-" is called so when I
tried using asm-mode as a substitute I couldn't figure out what top-line
designator it requires to load asm-mode when I load the file.

So can someone tell me what this top-line thing is called?

Does every mode have this thing available to it?

Is it easy to figure out each mode's 'top-line' thing based on the mode
name? (I looked in sh*.el and didn't find the shell-script designator in
there anywhere).

I understand I can undo the shell-script mode binding - don't want to do
that.  I also understand I can use alist (I think it's called) to also
invoke the desired mode for these text files - I don't want to do that
either...


Mike
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