Keyboard shortcut for running shell commands

Question

I want to trigger running makefile from inside emacs. I followed this link and added to

(defun set-exec-path-from-shell-PATH ()
(let ((path-from-shell (replace-regexp-in-string
                        "[ \t\n]*$"
                        ""
                        (shell-command-to-string "$SHELL --login -i -c 'echo $PATH'"))))
(setenv "PATH" path-from-shell)
(setq eshell-path-env path-from-shell) ; for eshell users
(setq exec-path (split-string path-from-shell path-separator))))

(when window-system (set-exec-path-from-shell-PATH))

to init.el to make emacs see my .bashrc settings. When I invoke shell-command by pressing M-! and type:

make something

I run makefile with success. But I want to run the same command by keyboard shortcut so I added:

(defun make-sth-in-shell ()
(interactive)
(shell-command ("make something"))  ; 
)

(add-hook 'some-hook
(lambda ()
(local-set-key (kbd "\C-c\C-p") 'make-sth-in-shell))
)

and now, when pressing C-c C-p I get

Invalid function: "make something"

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Emacs already has support for make.

The command is compile This will prompt you for the command line with the default being make -k

Just bind compile to a key using local-set-key or define-key

Answer 2

To answer the original question: there are extraneous parens in your function. It should read:

(defun make-sth-in-shell ()
  (interactive)
  (shell-command "make something"))

Explanation: shell-command takes a string as argument. Wrapping that string in parens causes emacs to try and execute it, attempting to find a function called "make something".

That said, the accepted answer is totally the way to go: you can change the default that M-x compile offers by setting the compile-command variable:

(setq compile-command "make something")

Answer 3

One thing that you are doing wrong is this line in your make-sth-in-shell function:

...
(shell-command ("make something"))
...

In Lisp, when the interpreter see a list (f a b c), it interprets it as a function call: call the function f with arguments a, b and c. In your case, ("make something") is a function call with no arguments. Now "make something" is a string, not a function, hence the Invalid function error message.

What you should be doing is:

...
(shell-command "make something")
...

That calls the function shell-command with argument "make something".

Whether that does what you want, I don't know: I'm just identifying the error here. And as the other answer says, it's better to use M-x compile and adjust the command.