Prevent buffer from being displayed

Question

How do you tell display-buffer-alist to not display a buffer whose name has a particular string in it? The "Display Action Functions" documentation mentions display-buffer-no-window. However, I don't see this in the list of available functions when trying to customize display-buffer-alist through M-x customize-variable. The options I see are:

0 = --
1 = display-buffer-reuse-window
2 = display-buffer-pop-up-window
3 = display-buffer-same-window
4 = display-buffer-pop-up-frame
5 = display-buffer-use-some-window
6 = Other function

Choosing "Other function" and manually specifying display-buffer-no-window doesn't work either - that function does not exist. I am using emacs 24.3.

Answer 1

It was added in Emacs 24.4:

(defun display-buffer-no-window (_buffer alist)
  "Display BUFFER in no window.
If ALIST has a non-nil `allow-no-window' entry, then don't display
a window at all.  This makes possible to override the default action
and avoid displaying the buffer.  It is assumed that when the caller
specifies a non-nil `allow-no-window' then it can handle a nil value
returned from `display-buffer' in this case."
  (when (cdr (assq 'allow-no-window alist))
    'fail))

You should always use the documentation built into Emacs if you want to know about the version you're actually using (and personally I recommend using it regardless). The online documentation is always for the latest release.