emacs keybindings with number keys

I use GNU Emacs, and I love it. However, I had trouble recently when I tried to re-bind C-1 to do something new.

Executive summary? Do this:

(global-set-key [(control \1)] 'foo)

Note the escaped 1. Evidently this keystroke syntax interprets numeric arguments as key ids, or something, instead of the key's actual character. So, to make it interpret the key binding the way we want, we have to escape the 1.

Note that there's another keystroke syntax, too:

(global-set-key "C-1" 'foo)

I don't know how to get this to work with number keys...but the first way is good enough for me.

ryan, Fri 06 Jan 2006

Johan Bockgard (from EmacsWiki) describes a similar solution:

The thing following control can be a symbol or a character. GNU Emacs has no separate character object type and 1 is indistinguishable from C-a as a character.
(list 1 (type-of 1)) => (1 integer) the number 1/the char ^A (list ?C-a (type-of ?C-a)) => (1 integer) ditto
(list '1 (type-of '1)) => (1 symbol) the symbol 1
?1 would work too:
(list ?1 (type-of ?1)) => (49 integer) the number 49/the char 1
I suggest (global-set-key (kbd "C-1") 'foo), btw.

snarfed.org

emacs keybindings with number keys

ashawley, Wed 07 Dec 2005

ryan, Fri 06 Jan 2006