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This section describes the standard functions for displaying messages in the echo area.
This function displays a message in the echo area.
format-string is a format string, and arguments are the
objects for its format specifications, like in the format-message
function (see Formatting Strings). The resulting formatted string
is displayed in the echo area; if it contains face
text
properties, it is displayed with the specified faces (see Faces).
The string is also added to the *Messages* buffer, but without
text properties (see Logging Messages).
Typically grave accent and apostrophe in the format translate to matching curved quotes, e.g., "Missing `%s'" might result in "Missing ‘foo’". See Text Quoting Style, for how to influence or inhibit this translation.
In batch mode, the message is printed to the standard error stream, followed by a newline.
When inhibit-message
is non-nil
, no message will be displayed
in the echo area, it will only be logged to ‘*Messages*’.
If format-string is nil
or the empty string,
message
clears the echo area; if the echo area has been
expanded automatically, this brings it back to its normal size. If
the minibuffer is active, this brings the minibuffer contents back
onto the screen immediately.
(message "Reverting `%s'..." (buffer-name)) ⊣ Reverting ‘subr.el’... ⇒ "Reverting ‘subr.el’..."
---------- Echo Area ---------- Reverting ‘subr.el’... ---------- Echo Area ----------
To automatically display a message in the echo area or in a pop-buffer,
depending on its size, use display-message-or-buffer
(see below).
Warning: If you want to use your own string as a message
verbatim, don’t just write (message string)
. If
string contains ‘%’, ‘`’, or ‘'’ it may be
reformatted, with undesirable results. Instead, use (message
"%s" string)
.
If this variable is non-nil
, it should be a function of one
argument, the text of a message to display in the echo area. This
function will be called by message
and related functions. If
the function returns nil
, the message is displayed in the echo
area as usual. If this function returns a string, that string is
displayed in the echo area instead of the original one. If this
function returns other non-nil
values, that means the message
was already handled, so message
will not display anything in
the echo area. See also clear-message-function
that can be
used to clear the message displayed by this function.
The default value is the function that displays the message at the end
of the minibuffer when the minibuffer is active. However, if the text
shown in the active minibuffer has the minibuffer-message
text
property (see Special Properties) on some character, the message
will be displayed before the first character having that property.
If this variable is non-nil
, message
and related
functions call it with no arguments when their argument message is
nil
or the empty string.
Usually this function is called when the next input event arrives
after displaying an echo-area message. The function is expected to
clear the message displayed by its counterpart function specified by
set-message-function
.
The default value is the function that clears the message displayed in an active minibuffer.
When this variable is non-nil
, message
and related functions
will not use the Echo Area to display messages.
This construct displays a message in the echo area temporarily, during the execution of body. It displays message, executes body, then returns the value of the last body form while restoring the previous echo area contents.
This function displays a message like message
, but may display it
in a dialog box instead of the echo area. If this function is called in
a command that was invoked using the mouse—more precisely, if
last-nonmenu-event
(see Command Loop Info) is either
nil
or a list—then it uses a dialog box or pop-up menu to
display the message. Otherwise, it uses the echo area. (This is the
same criterion that y-or-n-p
uses to make a similar decision; see
Yes-or-No Queries.)
You can force use of the mouse or of the echo area by binding
last-nonmenu-event
to a suitable value around the call.
This function displays a message like message
, but uses a dialog
box (or a pop-up menu) whenever that is possible. If it is impossible
to use a dialog box or pop-up menu, because the terminal does not
support them, then message-box
uses the echo area, like
message
.
This function displays the message message, which may be either a
string or a buffer. If it is shorter than the maximum height of the
echo area, as defined by max-mini-window-height
, it is displayed
in the echo area, using message
. Otherwise,
display-buffer
is used to show it in a pop-up buffer.
Returns either the string shown in the echo area, or when a pop-up buffer is used, the window used to display it.
If message is a string, then the optional argument buffer-name is the name of the buffer used to display it when a pop-up buffer is used, defaulting to *Message*. In the case where message is a string and displayed in the echo area, it is not specified whether the contents are inserted into the buffer anyway.
The optional arguments action and frame are as for
display-buffer
, and only used if a buffer is displayed.
This function returns the message currently being displayed in the
echo area, or nil
if there is none.
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