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(elisp)Auto Faces

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Automatic Face Assignment
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   Starting with Emacs 21, a hook is available for automatically
assigning faces to text in the buffer.  This hook is used for part of
the implementation of Font-Lock mode.

 - Variable: fontification-functions
     This variable holds a list of functions that are called by Emacs
     redisplay as needed to assign faces automatically to text in the
     buffer.

     The functions are called in the order listed, with one argument, a
     buffer position POS.  Each function should attempt to assign faces
     to the text in the current buffer starting at POS.

     Each function should record the faces they assign by setting the
     `face' property.  It should also add a non-`nil' `fontified'
     property for all the text it has assigned faces to.  That property
     tells redisplay that faces have been assigned to that text already.

     It is probably a good idea for each function to do nothing if the
     character after POS already has a non-`nil' `fontified' property,
     but this is not required.  If one function overrides the
     assignments made by a previous one, the properties as they are
     after the last function finishes are the ones that really matter.

     For efficiency, we recommend writing these functions so that they
     usually assign faces to around 400 to 600 characters at each call.