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This section describes some convenient interactive interfaces for
changing key bindings. They work by calling define-key
.
People often use global-set-key
in their init files
(see Init File) for simple customization. For example,
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-\\" 'next-line)
or
(global-set-key [?\C-x ?\C-\\] 'next-line)
or
(global-set-key [(control ?x) (control ?\\)] 'next-line)
redefines C-x C-\ to move down a line.
(global-set-key [M-mouse-1] 'mouse-set-point)
redefines the first (leftmost) mouse button, typed with the Meta key, to set point where you click.
Be careful when using non-ascii text characters in Lisp specifications of keys to bind. If these are read as multibyte text, as they usually will be in a Lisp file (see Loading Non-ASCII), you must type the keys as multibyte too. For instance, if you use this:
(global-set-key "ö" 'my-function) ; bind o-umlaut
or
(global-set-key ?ö 'my-function) ; bind o-umlaut
and your language environment is multibyte Latin-1, these commands actually bind the multibyte character with code 2294, not the unibyte Latin-1 character with code 246 (M-v). In order to use this binding, you need to enter the multibyte Latin-1 character as keyboard input. One way to do this is by using an appropriate input method (see Input Methods).
If you want to use a unibyte character in the key binding, you can
construct the key sequence string using multibyte-char-to-unibyte
or string-make-unibyte
(see Converting Representations).
This function sets the binding of key in the current global map to definition.
(global-set-key key definition) == (define-key (current-global-map) key definition)
This function removes the binding of key from the current global map.
One use of this function is in preparation for defining a longer key that uses key as a prefix—which would not be allowed if key has a non-prefix binding. For example:
(global-unset-key "\C-l") => nil (global-set-key "\C-l\C-l" 'redraw-display) => nilThis function is implemented simply using
define-key
:(global-unset-key key) == (define-key (current-global-map) key nil)