Silently call defun from emacsclient

Question

During the compilation of sources, I would like GNU Make to call an emacs defun. For this I have 2 options:

• Start a new emacs instance, and load the desired function and call it.

• Call the defun from the emacsclient like:

  emacsclient --eval "(my-emacs-defun)"
  

The latter has the advantage, it is faster, because the emacs server is already running and has the desired defun loaded.

But this also has a disadvantage, if (message ...) is called from (my-emacs-defun), it interrupts my active emacs session. I could try to modify (my-emacs-defun) so (message ...) isn't called, but is really hard when using emacs built-in functions.

Therefore I would like to know how to suppress the (message ...) from (my-emacs-defun). Is it possible to alter the (message ...) behavior when being called (my-emacs-defun)? Can I use(defadvice)` for this?

EDIT The real problem is, the message is displayed the minibuffer. It is irritating when using the minibuffer at that time (e.g. during (find-file)).

Answer 1

I decided to go for the first option: without emacsclient.

To be more precise I now use:

emacs --batch --eval "(my-emacs-defun)"

In my Makefile it looks like this:

sometarget:
        @emacs --batch --eval "$${elisp_code}"

define elisp_code
   (require 'something)
   (my-emacs-defun)
endif

This also seems to be fast.

Answer 2

Just redefine the message function for your call (temporarily):

(flet ((message (msg) ))
  (my-emacs-defun)))

Because of dynamic scoping for global functions, the name message will be redefined while the execution is inside the flet-expression, and it will return it's original sense after it exits the flet.

Example:

(defun verbose ()
  (message "hi"))

(let ()
  (message "one")
  (flet ((message (msg) ))
     (verbose))
  (message "two"))
; ->
; one
; two

You could've also temporarily rebind s Messages buffer, but I don't know where is it stored.

Answer 3

You can restore the message displayed in the echo area before the function call like this:

(let ((msg (current-message)))
  (do-something-that-calls-message)
  (message "%s" (or msg "")))

Answer 4

(with-temp-message "" (my-emacs-func))

Answer 5

I've looked in the emacs source code and I found this hack:

  (let ((message-log-max nil)
        (executing-kbd-macro t))
    (my-emacs-defun))

This does suppress all message, but still while (find-file) the focus of the minibuffer is lost.

Answer 6

Even better:

define emacs_script_content=
  (require 'something)
  (my-emacs-defun)
endef
export emacs_script_content

emacs-script:
    @echo $${emacs_script_content} > $@
.INTERMEDIATE: emacs-script

some-target: emacs-script
    @emacs --script $<

This way you won't get errors when calling make functions or when having quoted "text" in the script.