Re: This code won't match buffer names. Why not?

[Benjamin Andresen]

Chris Seberino <cseberino@gmail.com> writes:

> When I cycle through buffers, I'd like to skip *scratch*, *Messages*
> and *Whitespace Errors* buffers.
>
> I wrote following code to skip one more buffer if I'm sitting in
> either of those 3.
>
> However, it never matches those buffers.  Why not?

(current-buffer) returns an buffer and not the buffer-name.
You can check that with M-: (current-buffer)

Use (buffer-name (current-buffer)) and string-match. Or see below.

> (BTW, the (end-kbd-macro) is just a dummy function since "if" needs an
> "else" command.
> Is there a better dummy command I can add there?)

`if' also need an else part. Check C-h f if

> ; Sets F10 to execute a function that moves to another buffer.
> (global-set-key [f10] (lambda () (interactive)
>                                  (next-buffer)
>                                  (if (equal (current-buffer)
> "*scratch*")
>                                      (next-buffer)
>                                      (end-kbd-macro))
>                                  (if (equal (current-buffer)
> "*Messages*")
>                                      (next-buffer)
>                                      (end-kbd-macro))
>                                  (if (equal (current-buffer)
>                                             "*Whitespace Errors*")
>                                      (next-buffer)
>                                      (end-kbd-macro))))

The rewritten code would be better written like this:

(global-set-key (kbd "<f10>")
                '(lambda ()
                  (interactive)
                  (next-buffer)
                  (while (member (buffer-name (current-buffer))
                                 '("*scratch*" "*Messages*" "*Whitespace 
Errors*"))
                    (next-buffer))))

HTH,
benny