Emacs: Copy Current Line If No Selection 🚀

Copy Current Line If No Selection

put this in your Emacs Init File:

(defun xah-copy-line-or-region ()
  "Copy current line or selection.
When called repeatedly, append copy subsequent lines.
When `universal-argument' is called first, copy whole buffer (respects `narrow-to-region').

URL `http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_copy_cut_current_line.html'
Version: 2010-05-21 2022-10-03"
  (interactive)
  (let ((inhibit-field-text-motion nil))
    (if current-prefix-arg
        (progn
          (copy-region-as-kill (point-min) (point-max)))
      (if (region-active-p)
          (progn
            (copy-region-as-kill (region-beginning) (region-end)))
        (if (eq last-command this-command)
            (if (eobp)
                (progn )
              (progn
                (kill-append "\n" nil)
                (kill-append
                 (buffer-substring-no-properties (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))
                 nil)
                (progn
                  (end-of-line)
                  (forward-char))))
          (if (eobp)
              (if (eq (char-before) 10 )
                  (progn )
                (progn
                  (copy-region-as-kill (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))
                  (end-of-line)))
            (progn
              (copy-region-as-kill (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))
              (end-of-line)
              (forward-char))))))))

Cut Current Line If No Selection

put this in your Emacs Init File:

(defun xah-cut-line-or-region ()
  "Cut current line or selection.
When `universal-argument' is called first, cut whole buffer (respects `narrow-to-region').

URL `http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_copy_cut_current_line.html'
Version: 2010-05-21 2015-06-10"
  (interactive)
  (if current-prefix-arg
      (progn ; not using kill-region because we don't want to include previous kill
        (kill-new (buffer-string))
        (delete-region (point-min) (point-max)))
    (progn (if (region-active-p)
               (kill-region (region-beginning) (region-end) t)
             (kill-region (line-beginning-position) (line-beginning-position 2))))))

You need to give them keys. [see Emacs Keys: Define Key] A great hand saver is to bind them to single keys. Like this:

(global-set-key (kbd "<f2>") 'xah-cut-line-or-region) ; cut
(global-set-key (kbd "<f3>") 'xah-copy-line-or-region) ; copy
(global-set-key (kbd "<f4>") 'yank) ; paste

This is now part of ergoemacs-mode and Emacs: Xah Fly Keys.

2010-05-21 The code was inspired from http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SlickCopy. Thanks to Joseph O'Donnell for mentioning it. Apparently, this behavior is default in VisualStudio, TextMate, Sublime Text, SlickEdit.