Which variable gives the value of the current character?

Question

Is there a build-in variable which saves the current character at which the cursor is positioned on?

Kaushal Modi · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-25 14:57:38Z

4

You can use the char-after or following-char function to know what's the character under the cursor (or after the point).

Remember that point is always between characters, and the cursor normally appears over the character following point.

answered Jan 25, 2015 at 14:57

Kaushal Modi

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Based on your suggestion I wrote a function to determine if the current character is "i" or not but it doesn't work. (defun test-i () (interactive) ;; Check whether the current character is "i" or not. (if (equal (char-after) 'i) (message "yes" )(message "no") ) )
– Name
Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 15:09
1

'i means symbol i. What you need is ?i which returns the decimal ASCII value of the character 'i'.
– Kaushal Modi
Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 15:26
1

Here's what I found on learning about elisp symbols from a quick google search: stackoverflow.com/a/1780984/1219634
– Kaushal Modi
Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 15:30
1

On a side note, I prefer using the looking-at function that checks if the current character matches my provided regexp. Here is an example of how I use this function to check if the current character is a space character or a comment-start character: emacs.stackexchange.com/q/7519/115 For you example use case you can do (looking-at "i").
– Kaushal Modi
Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 15:47
*Correction: looking-at checks regexp match with current character onwards.
– Kaushal Modi
Commented Jan 25, 2015 at 16:26

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