I have my eshell opened in a window and in another window I have *Scratch* as a open buffer. I want to redirect the output of a command like say ls to *Scratch*. Is it possible? If yes, then how can I do it? Thanks.
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Yes:
ls >(get-buffer "*scratch*")
Or even
ls > #<buffer *scratch*>
See this question for more details.
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I think you don't even need the word "buffer",
ls > #<*scratch*>seems to work too. – Omar Feb 5 at 19:53
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The following answer uses a different approach than was suggested by the original poster. In this example, we use shell-command-to-string: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Synchronous-Processes.html
The default-directory in this example is hard-coded to "~/", which may or may not be the default-directory of the *scratch* buffer. We use let* (instead of just plain old let) so that shell-command-to-string respects the hard-coded default-directory that was let*-bound on the preceding line. If the *scratch* buffer did not already exist, then a new one will be created and its default-directory will be "~/". We go to the bottom of the *scratch* buffer just in case point was somewhere else. If the buffer is not already visible, then display it in another window.
To try out this example, type M-x eval-expression and paste the snippet into the mini-buffer when prompted and press the return key.
(let* ((default-directory "~/")
(string (shell-command-to-string "ls"))
(buffer (get-buffer-create "*scratch*")))
(with-current-buffer buffer
(goto-char (point-max))
(insert string))
(unless (get-buffer-window "*scratch*")
(display-buffer buffer t)))
