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Creating Buffers

This section describes the two primitives for creating buffers. get-buffer-create creates a buffer if it finds no existing buffer; generate-new-buffer always creates a new buffer, and gives it a unique name.

Other functions you can use to create buffers include with-output-to-temp-buffer (see section Temporary Displays) and create-file-buffer (see section Visiting Files).

Function: get-buffer-create name

This function returns a buffer named name. If such a buffer already exists, it is returned. If such a buffer does not exist, one is created and returned. The buffer does not become the current buffer--this function does not change which buffer is current.

An error is signaled if name is not a string.

(get-buffer-create "foo")
     => #<buffer foo>

The major mode for the new buffer is set by the value of default-major-mode. See section How Emacs Chooses a Major Mode.

Function: generate-new-buffer name

This function returns a newly created, empty buffer, but does not make it current. If there is no buffer named name, then that is the name of the new buffer. If that name is in use, this function adds suffixes of the form `<n>' are added to name, where n is an integer. It tries successive integers starting with 2 until it finds an available name.

An error is signaled if name is not a string.

(generate-new-buffer "bar")
     => #<buffer bar>
(generate-new-buffer "bar")
     => #<buffer bar<2>>
(generate-new-buffer "bar")
     => #<buffer bar<3>>

The major mode for the new buffer is set by the value of default-major-mode. See section How Emacs Chooses a Major Mode.

See the related function generate-new-buffer-name in section Buffer Names.

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