emacs --eval from the powershell

Question

I'm having a problem while invoking emacs to eval some elisp from the windows powershell.It seems to be a problem with the usage of quotes, but I can't figure that out:

This is the command that I'm executing:

PS> emacs.exe --eval '(with-current-buffer "*scratch*" (insert "Hi"))'

Then emacs opens and I get the following message in the *Backtrace* buffer:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-variable *scratch*)
(set-buffer *scratch*)
(save-current-buffer (set-buffer *scratch*) (insert Hi))
(with-current-buffer *scratch* (insert Hi))
eval((with-current-buffer *scratch* (insert Hi)))
command-line-1(("--eval" "(with-current-buffer *scratch* (insert Hi))"))
command-line()
normal-top-level()

Any help on how to run this correctly would be awesome.

Thanks

@JordonBiondo I don't see a way how can the quotes can be escaped here. Any suggestion? — quicoju
– quicoju, Commented May 16, 2014 at 2:32
@quicoju It looks like this has all the information you could possibly need. Also, SO has a couple of related posts about escaping quotes in PowerShell... — itsjeyd
– itsjeyd, Commented May 16, 2014 at 6:19
What is *scratch*? Why in asterisks? The error says that var is void. — Vesper
– Vesper, Commented May 16, 2014 at 10:30
@Vesper That is the buffer's name, emacs should see this string as "*scratch*", but for some reason powershell isn't passing the double quotes to emacs. — quicoju
– quicoju, Commented May 16, 2014 at 12:50
After playing a while with the quotes, I realized that I need to pass the emacs' escape character for the double quotes. So the command that finally worked for me is: PS> emacs.exe --eval '(with-current-buffer \"*scratch*\" (insert \"Hi\"))' Thanks everyone for your help. — quicoju
– quicoju, Commented May 16, 2014 at 13:32

quicoju · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-16 13:30:43Z

3

After playing a while with the quotes, I realized that I need to pass the emacs' escape character for the double quotes. So the command that finally worked for me is:

PS> emacs.exe --eval '(with-current-buffer \"*scratch*\" (insert \"Hi\"))'

Thanks everyone for your help.

answered May 16, 2014 at 13:30

quicoju

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