Repeating Commands in Emacs

How to repeat the last executed command in Emacs and how to convert the last executed command in Emacs to a complex command you can store for later use.

By Mickey Petersen

Updated for emacs 28

Repeating a command you just carried out is useful thing to know about, and yet because it’s bound to C-x z it’s unknown to most.

Like the . command in vi, the M-x repeat command will repeat the last action, but it does ignore input events, like moving around.

To save you from press the rather awkward keybind every time you want to repeat something, you can repeatedly press z after your first invocation to call repeat. Of course, you can also use the universal argument to repeat the command N number of times.

Although the repeat feature is useful, it’s best used for simple things. If you want to do complex chains of tasks, you should read why I think keyboard macros are misunderstood. It’s a deep dive into keyboard macros in Emacs and why they are so powerful. And no, they’re not just for munging text!

In a similar vein, you can exploit Emacs’s ability to turn any command you just executed into elisp. That elisp you can then invoke at will by evaluting it any way you see fit. You can also create a key binding for it.

The choices in Emacs are endless.

;; From http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/browse_thread/thread/44728fda08f1ec8f?hl=en&tvc=2 (defun make-repeatable-command (cmd) "Returns a new command that is a repeatable version of CMD. The new command is named CMD-repeat. CMD should be a quoted command. This allows you to bind the command to a compound keystroke and repeat it with just the final key. For example: (global-set-key (kbd \"C-c a\") (make-repeatable-command 'foo)) will create a new command called foo-repeat. Typing C-c a will just invoke foo. Typing C-c a a a will invoke foo three times, and so on." (fset (intern (concat (symbol-name cmd) "-repeat")) `(lambda ,(help-function-arglist cmd) ;; arg list ,(format "A repeatable version of `%s'." (symbol-name cmd)) ;; doc string ,(interactive-form cmd) ;; interactive form ;; see also repeat-message-function (setq last-repeatable-command ',cmd) (repeat nil))) (intern (concat (symbol-name cmd) "-repeat")))

Emacs 28 Edition is out now!

Repeating Commands in Emacs

Further Reading