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I would like to write a major mode for inspecting netCDF files. These are binary files which can be multiple GB in size. So I don't want to open them in emacs.

The interaction that I have in mind is the following:

  1. User opens netCDF file like any other file in emacs.
  2. A command line program (ncdump -h) is executed on the file and the output is interpreted by emacs.

The problem is that there seems to be no way to stop emacs from actually opening the file.

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    Interesting problem. You won't be able to do this from the major mode because that runs too late: Emacs needs to open the file first because it can choose the major mode based on the file contents (e.g. -*-my-mode-*-). You'd need to hook earlier in find-find-noselect, perhaps at the place where there's now an exception for directories.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Jul 20, 2016 at 19:11
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    Do you just need a function that runs a process and sends the output to a particular buffer (with the filename being an argument that the user can choose)? In what other way would you need a major-mode, since that normally implies operating on a particular buffer (e.g., what is the purpose of the major-mode, what does it do . . .)? Here is the link to the manual describing various processes that can be started with Emacs: gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/…
    – lawlist
    Jul 20, 2016 at 19:52
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    A start would be to use process-file or call-process on such a file, using ncdump -h etc.
    – Drew
    Jul 20, 2016 at 19:58
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    Do you know the package vlf from elpa? I have the impression that this package does exactly do what you try to accomplish not with binary files but with text files. I think you can learn from that package how to do what you want. If you have a 64-bit emacs then the integer-limitations of emacs are also of no concern with this package. You can install the package via M-x package-install.
    – Tobias
    Jul 21, 2016 at 15:48
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    I recommend you take another look at @Tobias's suggestion. Not because you want vlf's functionality, but because vlf needs the same functionality you need, so it's worth looking at how it does it.
    – Stefan
    Jul 27, 2016 at 21:27

2 Answers 2

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Pretty sure you can do something like this by making your file name "magic". See this part of the elisp reference manual.

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I use a package called vorbiscomment, which I now can't find at the URL in its header comment, and which doesn't appear in *ELPA or on EmacsWiki. Here's that non-functioning URL:

http://users-phys.au.dk/harder/

Anyway, it lets you edit the tag metadata for (binary) OGG Vorbis audio files, which sounds conceptually similar to what you want. It's really just a simple wrapper around command-line tools.

I've copied it to the following gist:

https://gist.github.com/PhilHudson/4fc8f38a5dc2b39f256feddb0014041c

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