7.5 Insert File Contents
In a Lisp program, if you want to look at the contents of a file but not alter
it, the fastest way is to use ‘insert-file-contents’ in a temporary buffer.
Visiting the file is not necessary and takes longer.
- insert-file ‘C-x i’
This function is for interactive use only; in Lisp code use
insert-file-contents instead
- insert-file-contents
- Function: insert-file-contents filename &optional visit end replace ¶
Insert contents of file FILENAME after point. Returns list of absolute
file name and number of characters inserted.
- VISIT if non-nil, the buffer’s visited filename and last save file
modtime are set, and it is marked unmodified.
- BEG and END specify what portion of the file to insert.
These arguments count bytes in the file, not characters in the buffer.
If VISIT is non-nil, BEG and END must be nil.
- REPLACE if non-nil, replace the current buffer contents (in the
accessible portion) with the file contents. This is better than simply
deleting and inserting the whole thing because (1) it preserves some
marker positions and (2) it puts less data in the undo list. When
REPLACE is non-nil, the second return value is the number of characters
that replace previous buffer contents.