EMACS Hacks

Here are a few EMACS hacks I have written:

• A version of bibtex.el that puts the commas at the beginning of each line as

  @Article{Kuszmaul95b
   ,author  = {Bradley C. Kuszmaul}
   ,title   = {The {S}tar{T}ech Massively Parallel Chess Program} 
   ,journal = {The Journal of the International Computer Chess Association}
   ,year    = 1995
   ,month   = MAR
   ,volume  = 18
   ,number  = 1
   ,pages   = {3--20}
  }
  

  rather than as

  @Article{Kuszmaul95b,
   author  = {Bradley C. Kuszmaul},
   title   = {The {S}tar{T}ech Massively Parallel Chess Program} ,
   journal = {The Journal of the International Computer Chess Association},
   year    = 1995,
   month   = MAR,
   volume  = 18,
   number  = 1,
   pages   = {3--20}
  }
  

  Several people I know use this format, including GLS, and CEL. I think we all decided independently to put the commas in front. Obviously the commans belong in front.

• I wrote a search function called alpha-point, which is helpful for adding entries address books (e.g., "rolodex" files) and bibtex bib files.

  Suppose you have a file that is a series of records kept in alphabetical order. It is a real pain to find the right place to add a new entry. Alpha-point puts the cursor on the place where you should insert something in alphabetical order.

  Alpha-point uses regular expressions to find the alphabetical key for each record. So e.g., for bibtex files, the regexp is an @ followed by some letters followed by an open-bracket-or-paren followed by some whitespace: The next thing is the key. For address databases, the regexp is typically a blank line. (I also have the regexp skip tex comments because my address file is full of those too.)

  Alpha-point makes adding bib entries fun!

  (I call it alpha-point as an allusion to meta-point. Meta-point finds functions in programs. Alpha-point finds records in an alphabetically sorted file.)