elisp - get lines of text to a list

12 Jul 2012 Here is an example of how get lines of text on a list.. I think I will use this on future for process text... Also I'm exercising my elisp skills since I want to be able to process text programmatically.

;; This text will be obtained 
;; by the function get-lines
;; It takes two parameters
;; The first being the start line (inclusive)
;; from with the text will be gathered 
;; The second being the end line (exclusive)
;; Nice and easy!! :-)

(defun get-beginning-of-line ()
  "Get the point at the beginning of line"
  (save-excursion
    (beginning-of-line)
    (point)))

(defun get-end-of-line ()
  "Get the point at the end of line"
  (save-excursion
    (end-of-line)
    (point)))

(defun programmatic-goto-line (line)
  "As goto-line but better for programming stuff"
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (forward-line (- line 1)))


(defun get-lines (start-line end-line)
  "Return a list with the lines between START-LINE (inclusive) and END-LINE (exclusive)"
  (save-excursion
    (programmatic-goto-line end-line)
    (let (lines)
      (while (< start-line (line-number-at-pos))
        (forward-line -1)
        (setq lines (cons (buffer-substring-no-properties (get-beginning-of-line) (get-end-of-line)) lines)))
      lines)))
      
               
;; Example
(let (v)
  (dolist (v (get-lines 1 7))
    (princ (format "%s\n" v))))

;; This text will be obtained 
;; by the function get-lines
;; It takes two parameters
;; The first being the start line (inclusive)
;; from with the text will be gathered 
;; The second being the end line (exclusive)
nil