Emacs: Define macro in comment and automatically execute it

Question

I'm using Emacs/AucTeX for editing LaTeX files. In some of my LaTeX files, I have defined some "file-specific" command (e.g. \todo{...} in one file, \compute{...} in another, and so on), so I can keep track of what open problems I have in my documents.

The Emacs command highlight-regexp does quite a good joob in highlightning all occurences of \todo{...}s resp. \compute{...}s. But up to now I have to execute the highlightning manually every time I open the corresponding file.

Is there a way of telling Emacs/AucTeX to invoke specific commands when opening a particular file? I would like to define these commands inside the corresponding file, so I can easily adjust it for different files (maybe included in local variables).

%%% Local Variables: 
%%% mode: latex
%%% TeX-master: "master"
%%%
%%% here I would like to have something like:
%%% execute highlight-regexp for specific arguments
%%%
%%% End: 

Answer 1

Try this,

%%% Local Variables: 
%%% eval: (font-lock-add-keywords nil '(("\\\\todo" (0 font-lock-warning-face))))
%%% End: 

See Section 57.3.4.1, Specifying File Variables, for more details.

Answer 2

You could use a hook in combination to local vars. For example, you could add a local variable dohighlight or something and then write a function like this:

(defun condhighl ()
 (when (boundp 'dohighlight)
 (highlight-regexp "regexp")))

and then add that function as a hook for AucTex

(add-hook 'tex-mode-hook 'condhighl)

You can then add the dohighlight var in your local vars to buffers you want to highlight the code in.

Answer 3

After using highlight-regexp to set up your highlighting, hi-lock-write-interactive-patterns (M-s h w) will write the patterns into the buffer as a magic comment.

You probably want to add a mode: hi-lock after the mode: latex line too, to activate the highlighting as soon as you open the file.