Trigger custom function when `*Scratch*` is recreated

Question

I would like to run a custom function whenever a new *Scratch* buffer is created because the last uninteresting buffer was killed. I looked at both the C source code and window.el and it appears that Lisp has nothing to do with the *Scratch* buffer being displayed in a particular window, but I'm not 100% certain. It appears as though tem = Fother_buffer (buffer, Qnil, Qnil) within kill-buffer is what leads to the creation of a new *Scratch* buffer.

Is there anything other than the buffer-list-update-hook that I could use to trigger my custom function when a new *Scratch* gets spawned? I don't think that replace-buffer-in-windows is any help in this context.

[I don't really want to advise get-buffer-create.]

Answer 1

The function assigned to the variable initial-major-mode is only called when *Scratch* is created by Emacs (e.g., startup.el, or when certain criteria is met when killing a buffer). It can be a custom function -- e.g., set the major-mode and do anything else under the sun.

(setq initial-major-mode (lambda () (lisp-interaction-mode) (message "*scratch*")))

Answer 2

The *scratch* buffer isn't special; it's just a regular buffer with a fixed name. There are no special hooks just for it, so buffer-list-update-hook is the way to go.