Re: interactive?

[tomas]

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On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 05:32:02AM -0800, alin.s wrote:
> 
> I do not understand the use of (interactive )
> 
> (defun x (n)
>   (interactive "P")
>   n)

(See also Andreas' reply)

One way to look at it is that an interactive function is also a
"command": you, as a user get help to call such a function. For example,
you can call "query-replace-regexp" with M-x query-replace-regexp and
get help with tab-expansion and with parameters (just try), because it
was declared "interactive" (note that the call for interactive has
specifications about how to prompt for the different arguments).

You need to declare a function interactive if you want to bind it to a
menu or key.

Besides that, it will still behave as a normal function.

Regards
- -- tomás
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