7

When I do C-h v package-alist, I see something like

((PACKAGE-NAME1 [cl-struct-package-desc
                PACKAGE-NAME1
                (VERSION1)
                "DESCRIPTION1"
                (DEPENDENCIES-ALIST1)
                nil
                nil
                "LOCAL-INST-PATH1"
                (URL-ALIST1)
                nil])

 (PACKAGE-NAME2 [cl-struct-package-desc
                PACKAGE-NAME2
                (VERSION2)
                "DESCRIPTION2"
                (DEPENDENCIES-ALIST2)
                nil
                nil
                "LOCAL-INST-PATH2"
                (URL-ALIST2)
                nil])
  ...)

How can I see the full alist instead of its truncated form with the ellipsis characters ... at the end?

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2
  • 3
    I've got eval-expression-print-length and eval-expression-print-level both at nil for this reason. It can be a pain though if something too large is printed.
    – abo-abo
    Feb 4, 2015 at 20:02
  • 4
    You can also press RET on the ellipsis to expand it. I usually press RET and then yank-paste it. There's also a way to cancel the special overlay that hides the rest of the printed text with one function, but I think one would have to write it. Also see: stackoverflow.com/questions/13568262
    – wvxvw
    Feb 4, 2015 at 20:26

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
11

As mentioned in the comments you can tweak eval-expression-print-* or expand by hitting RET or mouse-2 on the ellipses (which calls last-sexp-toggle-display). However probably the most useful for general messing around in the *scratch* buffer is:

(pp package-alist)

Which will format the output in a more readable way.

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6

Set eval-expression-print-length and eval-expression-print-level to nil.

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