mark-whole-region and pbcopy without losing current point/region

Question

I wrote a hydra today (I think my very first one) - I always do Meta-| pbcopy after doing a C-x h, so why not let hydra help out:

    (global-set-key
     (kbd "C-x h")
     (defhydra hydra-my-mark-whole-buffer
       (:body-pre (mark-whole-buffer))
       "hydra-my-mark-whole-buffer"
       ("h" mark-whole-buffer "this was not needed")
       ("p" my-pbcopy "Meta-| pbcopy")))
    
    
    ;; https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/13177
    (defun my-pbcopy (beg end)
      (interactive "r")
      (message (if (zerop (shell-command-on-region beg end "pbcopy")) "copied" "copy failed")))

(btw I'm always in emacsclient -nw mode)

Anyway, I'd like two more things:

• not lose the point/position
• if a region was marked before calling the hydra, if should stay that way after pbcopy has been done.

How can I tweak my code to do that?

Answer 1

In general, if you want to run a command but maintain the initial point, you would wrap the function in (save-excursion ...)

From the documentation: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/eintr/save_002dexcursion.html:

In Emacs Lisp programs used for editing, the save-excursion function is very common. It saves the location of point, executes the body of the function, and then restores point to its previous position if its location was changed. Its primary purpose is to keep the user from being surprised and disturbed by unexpected movement of point.