Re: Using Emacs' help system

[Dan Espen]

Aidan Gauland <aidalgol@no8wireless.co.nz> writes:

> deech <aditya.siram@gmail.com> writes:
>> I wanted to get the character count in a region. At the `M-x apropos`
>> prompt I tried all variations of `character`, `char`, `number` and
>> count` without results. A quick Google search showed that I needed
>> count-word-region`. My question is how could I have used the help
>> system to get there?
>
> I think this is a case of obscure naming.  That function doesn't mention
> in its docstring that it returns a character count as well.>

Is that a typo above?
I find count-words, not count-word.

in 24.1.1 I see:

  count-words-region is an interactive compiled Lisp function.

  It is bound to M-=.

  (count-words-region START END)

  Count the number of words in the region.
  If called interactively, print a message reporting the number of
  lines, words, and chars in the region.
  If called from Lisp, return the number of words between positions
  START and END.

Seems to mention characters.


-- 
Dan Espen