Re: elisp beginner's parens question ??

[William Case]

Thank you Robert

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 21:58 -0500, Robert D. Crawford wrote:
> William Case <billlinux@rogers.com> writes:
> 
> > However, the "mental tips or tricks" was really a 'by the way' or an
> > after thought question.  What I was really asking was how the
> > interpreter or emacs uses parenthesis or how parenthesis are nested.
> > Put another way, I was trying to develop for myself a minds eye view of
> > how check-parens works.  Does check-parens just count left parens and
> > compare that to the number of right parens to find an error, or does it
> > actually examine nested parens pairs and work inword (or outward) ?
> 
> This might provide your answer.  If you do C-h f and supply a function
> name, the resulting buffer, in X anyway, will have a link to the
> function's definition.

Didn't know about the link to functions definition / source code.
> 
> (defun check-parens ()                        ; lame name?
>   "Check for unbalanced parentheses in the current buffer.
> More accurately, check the narrowed part of the buffer for unbalanced
> expressions (\"sexps\") in general.  This is done according to the
> current syntax table and will find unbalanced brackets or quotes as
> appropriate.  (See Info node `(emacs)Parentheses'.)  If imbalance is
> found, an error is signaled and point is left at the first unbalanced
> character."

Info node (emacs)Parentheses) lead me to 'show-paren-mode' which, when
turned on, showed me how to visualize what way happening with the
parentheses check.

I appreciate the time you took to answer. 

-- 
Regards Bill