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How to make $ as an alias for a specific keyboard macro in emacs

Suppose that I have defined a macro in emacs (24.2), say xyz.

I would like to associate the shortcut $ to this macro, i.e. to run the macro xyz whenever I type $. How I can do it?

I tried all of the following without success:

(global-set-key [$] 'xyz) 
(global-set-key ["$"] 'xyz) 
(global-set-key [?$] 'xyz) 
(global-set-key [s-4] 'xyz)
(global-set-key "$" 'xyz) 
(global-set-key (kbd "$") 'xyz)

(The last three ones were suggested by bleeding-fingers, abo-abo and Chris).

Solution

  • From your comments, it is now clear that you've defined a macro that includes using the key $. If you do this, you can't then bind the macro to the $, because that makes it recursive - every time you get to the $ in your macro, you are in effect calling the macro again.

    You could, however, define the actions you want performed as an elisp function, which you could then bind to $. If we knew what you were actually doing with your macro we might be able to show you how.

    EDIT: how about this:

    (global-set-key (kbd "$") #'(lambda () (interactive) (insert " $")))

    That should work, but lambdas can be a bit confusing. A little clearer for elisp beginners might be:

    (defun my-dollars ()
  "Insert a dollar sign with a space in front."
  (interactive)
  (insert " $"))

(global-set-key (kbd "$") 'my-dollars)