Re: What's the meaning of "^A" in emacs?

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Drew Adams writes:

> > > When you say "input", do you mean to *insert* them as chars 
> > > into a buffer? If so, just hit C-q first.  But I don't think 
> > > you should do this too often (?). 
> >  Yes, why would someone use this? The only thing that I use is 
> > the "form feed" (^L) to divide sections in plain text documents 
> > and then be able to use C-x [ and C-x ] to move between pages. 
> > Does someone know of any other "control character" use? 
>
> It is common to use `C-j' when you interactively enter a regexp 
> that contains a newline char (Control J).  This is because 
> (vanilla) Emacs binds `C-j' in the minibuffer to a command other 
> than self-insertion.

Yes, I had forgotten that one. It is very handy not only in regexp 
but when using command query-replace.

Another use is C-q <space>, for writing a space with ido or when 
auto-fill-mode is on and you want not to break the line.

--
Jorge.