> 'read-string-from-buffer' was intended to do this by relying on
> 'string-edit'. You could add a new function e.g. named
> 'read-_expression_-from-buffer' that does the same as
> 'read--_expression_' but using a buffer instead of the minibuffer.
Of course Emacs has one built-in :-) I’ll see if I can make some improvement to the read-string-from-buffer functions. In particular, I think arbitrary setup function and validator would be useful additions.
If I'm following you correctly, also a serializer/deserializer function pair, so the user can edit expressions in non-lisp syntax and still have them stored as lisp values.
João