GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual

21.3: Substituting Key Bindings in Documentation

When documentation strings refer to key sequences, they should use the current, actual key bindings. They can do so using certain special text sequences described below. Accessing documentation strings in the usual way substitutes current key binding information for these special sequences. This works by calling substitute-command-keys. You can also call that function yourself.

Here is a list of the special sequences and what they mean:

\[command]

stands for a key sequence that will invoke command, or M-x command if command has no key bindings.

\{mapvar}

stands for a summary of the value of mapvar, which should be a keymap. The summary is made by describe-bindings.

\<mapvar>

stands for no text itself. It is used for a side effect: it specifies mapvar as the keymap for any following \[command] sequences in this documentation string.

Please note: Each \ must be doubled when written in a string in Emacs Lisp.

Function: substitute-command-keys string

This function scans string for the above special sequences and replaces them by what they stand for, returning the result as a string. This permits display of documentation that refers accurately to the user's own customized key bindings.

Here are examples of the special sequences:

(substitute-command-keys 
   "To abort recursive edit, type: \\[abort-recursive-edit]")
=> "To abort recursive edit, type: C-]"
(substitute-command-keys 
   "The keys that are defined for the minibuffer here are:
  \\{minibuffer-local-must-match-map}")
=> "The keys that are defined for the minibuffer here are:

?               minibuffer-completion-help
SPC             minibuffer-complete-word
TAB             minibuffer-complete
LFD             minibuffer-complete-and-exit
RET             minibuffer-complete-and-exit
C-g             abort-recursive-edit
"

(substitute-command-keys
   "To abort a recursive edit from the minibuffer, type\
\\<minibuffer-local-must-match-map>\\[abort-recursive-edit].")
=> "To abort a recursive edit from the minibuffer, type C-g."