Operating System Interface

This chapter is about starting and getting out of Emacs, access to values in the operating system environment, and terminal input, output.

See Building Emacs, for related information. See Display, for additional operating system status information pertaining to the terminal and the screen.

• Starting Up		Customizing Emacs startup processing.
• Getting Out		How exiting works (permanent or temporary).
• System Environment		Distinguish the name and kind of system.
• User Identification		Finding the name and user id of the user.
• Time of Day		Getting the current time.
• Time Zone Rules		Rules for time zones and daylight saving time.
• Time Conversion		Converting among timestamp forms.
• Time Parsing		Converting timestamps to text and vice versa.
• Processor Run Time		Getting the run time used by Emacs.
• Time Calculations		Adding, subtracting, comparing times, etc.
• Timers		Setting a timer to call a function at a certain time.
• Idle Timers		Setting a timer to call a function when Emacs has been idle for a certain length of time.
• Terminal Input		Accessing and recording terminal input.
• Terminal Output		Controlling and recording terminal output.
• Sound Output		Playing sounds on the computer’s speaker.
• X11 Keysyms		Operating on key symbols for X Windows.
• Batch Mode		Running Emacs without terminal interaction.
• Session Management		Saving and restoring state with X Session Management.
• Desktop Notifications		Desktop notifications.
• File Notifications		File notifications.
• Dynamic Libraries		On-demand loading of support libraries.
• Security Considerations		Running Emacs in an unfriendly environment.