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(emacs)Killing

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Deletion and Killing
====================

   Most commands which erase text from the buffer save it in the kill
ring so that you can move or copy it to other parts of the buffer.
These commands are known as "kill" commands.  The rest of the commands
that erase text do not save it in the kill ring; they are known as
"delete" commands.  (This distinction is made only for erasure of text
in the buffer.)  If you do a kill or delete command by mistake, you can
use the `C-x u' (`undo') command to undo it (Note: Undo).

   You cannot kill read-only text, since such text does not allow any
kind of modification.  But some users like to use the kill commands to
copy read-only text into the kill ring, without actually changing it.
If you set the variable `kill-read-only-ok' to a non-`nil' value, the
kill commands work specially in a read-only buffer: they move over
text, and copy it to the kill ring, without actually deleting it from
the buffer.  When this happens, a message in the echo area tells you
what is happening.

   The delete commands include `C-d' (`delete-char') and <DEL>
(`delete-backward-char'), which delete only one character at a time,
and those commands that delete only spaces or newlines.  Commands that
can destroy significant amounts of nontrivial data generally do a kill
operation instead.  The commands' names and individual descriptions use
the words `kill' and `delete' to say which kind of operation they
perform.

   Many window systems follow the convention that insertion while text
is selected deletes the selected text.  You can make Emacs behave this
way by enabling Delete Selection mode, with `M-x
delete-selection-mode', or using Custom.  Another effect of this mode
is that <DEL>, `C-d' and some other keys, when a selection exists, will
kill the whole selection.  It also enables Transient Mark mode (Note:
Transient Mark).

Deletion

Commands for deleting small amounts of text and

blank areas.

Killing by Lines

How to kill entire lines of text at one time.

Other Kill Commands

Commands to kill large regions of text and

syntactic units such as words and sentences.