Re: `save-excursion' defeated by `set-buffer'

[Stefan Monnier]

> Me too I've seen these messages with some code I've been using. Yet
> I wasn't sure how to interpret them / what to do with them. I looked
> into the elisp manual, but I didn't find anything. It would be great
> if someone could add a remark to the elisp manual and / or
> docstrings about the relation between save-excursion, set-buffer and
> with-current-buffer.

save-excursion only saves point in the current buffer, so

   (save-excursion (set-buffer foo) (goto-char (point-min)))

will move point in foo and the point-saving done by save-excursion is
useless.  So either you want to use

   (save-current-buffer (set-buffer foo) (goto-char (point-min)))
aka
   (with-current-buffer foo (goto-char (point-min)))

if moving point in foo is what you wanted, or

   (with-current-buffer foo (save-excursion (goto-char (point-min))))

if you didn't want to move point in foo.


        Stefan