[h-e-w] overlays

[Richard Y. Kim]

>>>>> "RH" == Richard M Heiberger <address@hidden> writes:
    RH> 
    RH> This is a question and a report on a documentation bug.
    RH> How do overlays work.  They are builtin, so there is no overaly.el
    RH> file to read.  Also there is no information in the *info*.

Recent elisp 21 manual has a section on overlays available from
ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU/emacs/elisp-manual-21-2.7a.tar.gz
or any other GNU mirror.

For a quick access, I recommend 

  http://www.emacslisp.org/manuals/elisp_annotated

The overlay section in particular is at

  http://baxter.aroy.net/yesod/manuals/elisp_annotated/elisp_626.php#SEC626

    RH> The specific tasks I am trying to do are
    RH> 1. highlight a rectangular region.
    RH> 2. Highlight a range of columns in all rows in a data array.