26.2 The Current Buffer

There are, in general, many buffers in an Emacs session. At any time, one of them is designated the current buffer—the buffer in which most editing takes place. Most of the primitives for examining or changing text operate implicitly on the current buffer (see Text).

Normally, the buffer displayed in the selected window is the current buffer, but this is not always so: a Lisp program can temporarily designate any buffer as current in order to operate on its contents, without changing what is displayed on the screen. The most basic function for designating a current buffer is set-buffer.

Function: current-buffer

This function returns the current buffer.

(current-buffer)
     ⇒ #<buffer buffers.texi>

Function: set-buffer buffer-or-name

This function makes buffer-or-name the current buffer. buffer-or-name must be an existing buffer or the name of an existing buffer. The return value is the buffer made current.

This function does not display the buffer in any window, so the user cannot necessarily see the buffer. But Lisp programs will now operate on it.

When an editing command returns to the editor command loop, Emacs automatically calls set-buffer on the buffer shown in the selected window. This is to prevent confusion: it ensures that the buffer that the cursor is in, when Emacs reads a command, is the buffer to which that command applies (see Command Loop). Thus, you should not use set-buffer to switch visibly to a different buffer; for that, use the functions described in Switching Buffers.

When writing a Lisp function, do not rely on this behavior of the command loop to restore the current buffer after an operation. Editing commands can also be called as Lisp functions by other programs, not just from the command loop; it is convenient for the caller if the subroutine does not change which buffer is current (unless, of course, that is the subroutine’s purpose).

To operate temporarily on another buffer, put the set-buffer within a save-current-buffer form. Here, as an example, is a simplified version of the command append-to-buffer:

(defun append-to-buffer (buffer start end)
  "Append the text of the region to BUFFER."
  (interactive "BAppend to buffer: \nr")
  (let ((oldbuf (current-buffer)))
    (save-current-buffer
      (set-buffer (get-buffer-create buffer))
      (insert-buffer-substring oldbuf start end))))

Here, we bind a local variable to record the current buffer, and then save-current-buffer arranges to make it current again later. Next, set-buffer makes the specified buffer current, and insert-buffer-substring copies the string from the original buffer to the specified (and now current) buffer.

Alternatively, we can use the with-current-buffer macro:

(defun append-to-buffer (buffer start end)
  "Append the text of the region to BUFFER."
  (interactive "BAppend to buffer: \nr")
  (let ((oldbuf (current-buffer)))
    (with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create buffer)
      (insert-buffer-substring oldbuf start end))))

In either case, if the buffer appended to happens to be displayed in some window, the next redisplay will show how its text has changed. If it is not displayed in any window, you will not see the change immediately on the screen. The command causes the buffer to become current temporarily, but does not cause it to be displayed.

If you make local bindings (with let or function arguments) for a variable that may also have buffer-local bindings, make sure that the same buffer is current at the beginning and at the end of the local binding’s scope. Otherwise you might bind it in one buffer and unbind it in another!

Do not rely on using set-buffer to change the current buffer back, because that won’t do the job if a quit happens while the wrong buffer is current. For instance, in the previous example, it would have been wrong to do this:

  (let ((oldbuf (current-buffer)))
    (set-buffer (get-buffer-create buffer))
    (insert-buffer-substring oldbuf start end)
    (set-buffer oldbuf))

Using save-current-buffer or with-current-buffer, as we did, correctly handles quitting, errors, and throw, as well as ordinary evaluation.

Special Form: save-current-buffer body…

The save-current-buffer special form saves the identity of the current buffer, evaluates the body forms, and finally restores that buffer as current. The return value is the value of the last form in body. The current buffer is restored even in case of an abnormal exit via throw or error (see Nonlocal Exits).

If the buffer that used to be current has been killed by the time of exit from save-current-buffer, then it is not made current again, of course. Instead, whichever buffer was current just before exit remains current.

Macro: with-current-buffer buffer-or-name body…

The with-current-buffer macro saves the identity of the current buffer, makes buffer-or-name current, evaluates the body forms, and finally restores the current buffer. buffer-or-name must specify an existing buffer or the name of an existing buffer.

The return value is the value of the last form in body. The current buffer is restored even in case of an abnormal exit via throw or error (see Nonlocal Exits).

Macro: with-temp-buffer body…

The with-temp-buffer macro evaluates the body forms with a temporary buffer as the current buffer. It saves the identity of the current buffer, creates a temporary buffer and makes it current, evaluates the body forms, and finally restores the previous current buffer while killing the temporary buffer. By default, undo information (see Undo) is not recorded in the buffer created by this macro (but body can enable that, if needed).

The return value is the value of the last form in body. You can return the contents of the temporary buffer by using (buffer-string) as the last form.

The current buffer is restored even in case of an abnormal exit via throw or error (see Nonlocal Exits).

See also with-temp-file in Writing to Files.