14. Editing m4 Code

This mode is used for editing m4 macro definitions. It is NOT automatically invoked for any particular file extension. To invoke this mode while editing a file, type M-x m4-mode.

The mode has most of the syntax right (i.e., sexp motion commands work, but function motion commands don't). It also sets up font-lock for colorization.

To configure this package please view the source code. This can be done by typing C-x 4 l m4-mode.

NOTE: The preferred package for editing m4 code is autoconf mode. See section 4. Editing Autoconf Input Files., for details.

14.1 About m4

m4 is a general purpose macro processor that can be used to preprocess C and assembly language programs, among other things. Besides the straightforward replacement of one string of text by another, m4 lets you perform:

• integer arithmetic
• file inclusion
• conditional macro expansion
• string and substring manipulation

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.