GNU Info

(emacs)Sentences

---

Next: Paragraphs Prev: Words Up: Text

---

Enter node , (file) or (file)node

Sentences
=========

   The Emacs commands for manipulating sentences and paragraphs are
mostly on Meta keys, so as to be like the word-handling commands.

`M-a'
     Move back to the beginning of the sentence (`backward-sentence').

`M-e'
     Move forward to the end of the sentence (`forward-sentence').

`M-k'
     Kill forward to the end of the sentence (`kill-sentence').

`C-x <DEL>'
     Kill back to the beginning of the sentence
     (`backward-kill-sentence').

   The commands `M-a' and `M-e' (`backward-sentence' and
`forward-sentence') move to the beginning and end of the current
sentence, respectively.  They were chosen to resemble `C-a' and `C-e',
which move to the beginning and end of a line.  Unlike them, `M-a' and
`M-e' if repeated or given numeric arguments move over successive
sentences.

   Moving backward over a sentence places point just before the first
character of the sentence; moving forward places point right after the
punctuation that ends the sentence.  Neither one moves over the
whitespace at the sentence boundary.

   Just as `C-a' and `C-e' have a kill command, `C-k', to go with them,
so `M-a' and `M-e' have a corresponding kill command `M-k'
(`kill-sentence') which kills from point to the end of the sentence.
With minus one as an argument it kills back to the beginning of the
sentence.  Larger arguments serve as a repeat count.  There is also a
command, `C-x <DEL>' (`backward-kill-sentence'), for killing back to
the beginning of a sentence.  This command is useful when you change
your mind in the middle of composing text.

   The sentence commands assume that you follow the American typist's
convention of putting two spaces at the end of a sentence; they consider
a sentence to end wherever there is a `.', `?' or `!' followed by the
end of a line or two spaces, with any number of `)', `]', `'', or `"'
characters allowed in between.  A sentence also begins or ends wherever
a paragraph begins or ends.

   The variable `sentence-end' controls recognition of the end of a
sentence.  It is a regexp that matches the last few characters of a
sentence, together with the whitespace following the sentence.  Its
normal value is

     "[.?!][]\"')]*\\($\\| $\\|\t\\|  \\)[ \t\n]*"

This example is explained in the section on regexps.  Note: Regexps.

   If you want to use just one space between sentences, you should set
`sentence-end' to this value:

     "[.?!][]\"')]*\\($\\|\t\\| \\)[ \t\n]*"

You should also set the variable `sentence-end-double-space' to `nil'
so that the fill commands expect and leave just one space at the end of
a sentence.  Note that this makes it impossible to distinguish between
periods that end sentences and those that indicate abbreviations.