How can I define an emacs command X that does something and then calls another emacs command Y and also copying the interactive interface of the command Y too?
I want to define an altenative version of query-replace with temporarilly toggled value of case-fold-search:
(defun alt-query-replace (a b c d e)
(interactive)
(let ((case-fold-search (not case-fold-search))
(query-replace a b c d e)))
This doesn't work. When I call alt-query-replace, it says "wrong number of arguments". I want the interactive interface of alt-query-replace to be the same as query-replace. Do I need to inspect the source code of query-replace or is there a general approach?
Use call-interactively:
(defun alt-query-replace ()
(interactive)
(let ((case-fold-search (not case-fold-search)))
(call-interactively 'query-replace)))
You may advise the original function, if you want to modify its behavior instead of calling a separate function.
From chapter 17.3 Around-Advice of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual:
Around-advice lets you “wrap” a Lisp
expression “around” the original
function definition.
(defadvice foo (around foo-around)
"Ignore case in `foo'."
(let ((case-fold-search t))
ad-do-it))
In your case, you can write:
(defadvice query-replace (around alt-query-replace (from-string to-string &optional delimited start end))
(let ((case-fold-search (not case-fold-search)))
ad-do-it))
(ad-activate 'query-replace)