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I have a plain text dictionary in which each headword is matched by

^# \(† \)?headword,

How can I make a custom search function that relieves me of typing the whole regex every time I want to look up a word? I tried recording a keyboard macro, but that didn't work.

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Something like this might do. I wasn't sure how you store the dictionary though.

(defun my-search (word)
  (interactive "sWord: ")
  ;; some code to open your dictionary file
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (re-search-forward (format "^# \\(† \\)?%s," word) nil t))
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  • Thanks. The dictionary is in one file, I didn't think about looking up from another buffer. Anyway, this doesn't seem to work .. – Toothrot Oct 24 '16 at 9:57
  • What does it do? more importantly, what do you expect it to do? All that code should do is prompt for a word, open a file (that code is missing), and search forward to the match. – John Kitchin Oct 24 '16 at 10:58
  • It doesn't find what I search for. For example, I have a line beginning with # pugilist, but that isn't found with the function. I get prompted for a search word, but after I have entered pugilist nothing happens. (Correction: point is moved to top of file.) – Toothrot Oct 24 '16 at 11:45
  • That probably means the regexp is wrong. What is the cross symbol in the parens? If you delete († )? Does it work? – John Kitchin Oct 24 '16 at 12:06
  • Should that matter with the question mark there? I've tested it manually and it works. (The dagger I think is put in front of obsolete words.) – Toothrot Oct 24 '16 at 19:06

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