A.2 Initial Options
The initial options specify parameters for the Emacs session. This
section describes the more general initial options; some other options
specifically related to the X Window System appear in the following
sections.
Some initial options affect the loading of init files. The normal
actions of Emacs are to first load site-start.el if it exists,
then your own init file ~/.emacs if it exists, and finally
default.el if it exists; certain options prevent loading of some
of these files or substitute other files for them.
- `-t device'
- `--terminal=device'
- Use device as the device for terminal input and output.
- `-d display'
- `--display=display'
- Use the X Window System and use the display named display to open
the initial Emacs frame. See Display X, for more details.
- `-nw'
- `--no-windows'
- Don't communicate directly with the window system, disregarding the
DISPLAY environment variable even if it is set. This forces Emacs
to run as if the display were a text-only terminal.
- `-batch'
- `--batch'
- Run Emacs in batch mode, which means that the text being edited is
not displayed and the standard terminal interrupt characters such as
C-z and C-c continue to have their normal effect. Emacs in
batch mode outputs to
stderr
only what would normally be displayed
in the echo area under program control, and functions which would
normally read from the minibuffer take their input from stdin
.
Batch mode is used for running programs written in Emacs Lisp from
shell scripts, makefiles, and so on. Normally the `-l' option
or `-f' option will be used as well, to invoke a Lisp program
to do the batch processing.
`-batch' implies `-q' (do not load an init file). It also
causes Emacs to exit after processing all the command options. In
addition, it disables auto-saving except in buffers for which it has
been explicitly requested.
- `-q'
- `--no-init-file'
- Do not load your Emacs init file ~/.emacs, or default.el
either. When invoked like this, Emacs does not allow saving options
changed with the M-x customize command and its variants.
See Easy Customization.
- `--no-site-file'
- Do not load site-start.el. The options `-q', `-u'
and `-batch' have no effect on the loading of this file—this is
the only option that blocks it.
- `-u user'
- `--user=user'
- Load user's Emacs init file ~user/.emacs instead of
your own.
- `--debug-init'
- Enable the Emacs Lisp debugger for errors in the init file.
- `--unibyte'
- Do almost everything with single-byte buffers and strings.
All buffers and strings are unibyte unless you (or a Lisp program)
explicitly ask for a multibyte buffer or string. (Note that Emacs
always loads Lisp files in multibyte mode, even if `--unibyte' is
specified; see Enabling Multibyte.) Setting the environment
variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same effect.
- `--multibyte'
- Inhibit the effect of EMACS_UNIBYTE, so that Emacs
uses multibyte characters by default, as usual.