Emacs: Select Text Between Quotes 🚀

Select Text between Quotes/Brackets

Select text inside quotes is one of the most frequently needed operation in programing languages code.

put this in your Emacs Init File:

(defvar xah-brackets '("“”" "()" "[]" "{}" "<>" "＜＞" "（）" "［］" "｛｝" "⦅⦆" "〚〛" "⦃⦄" "‹›" "«»" "「」" "〈〉" "《》" "【】" "〔〕" "⦗⦘" "『』" "〖〗" "〘〙" "｢｣" "⟦⟧" "⟨⟩" "⟪⟫" "⟮⟯" "⟬⟭" "⌈⌉" "⌊⌋" "⦇⦈" "⦉⦊" "❛❜" "❝❞" "❨❩" "❪❫" "❴❵" "❬❭" "❮❯" "❰❱" "❲❳" "〈〉" "⦑⦒" "⧼⧽" "﹙﹚" "﹛﹜" "﹝﹞" "⁽⁾" "₍₎" "⦋⦌" "⦍⦎" "⦏⦐" "⁅⁆" "⸢⸣" "⸤⸥" "⟅⟆" "⦓⦔" "⦕⦖" "⸦⸧" "⸨⸩" "｟｠")
 "A list of strings, each element is a string of 2 chars, the left bracket and a matching right bracket.
Used by `xah-select-text-in-quote' and others.
Version 2023-07-31")

(defconst xah-left-brackets
  (mapcar (lambda (x) (substring x 0 1)) xah-brackets)
  "List of left bracket chars. Each element is a string.")

(defconst xah-right-brackets
  (mapcar (lambda (x) (substring x 1 2)) xah-brackets)
  "List of right bracket chars. Each element is a string.")

(defun xah-select-text-in-quote ()
  "Select text between the nearest left and right delimiters.
Delimiters here includes QUOTATION MARK, GRAVE ACCENT, and anything in `xah-brackets'.
This command ignores nesting. For example, if text is
「(a(b)c▮)」
the selected char is 「c」, not 「a(b)c」.

URL `http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_select_quote_text.html'
Version: 2020-11-24 2023-07-23 2023-11-14"
  (interactive)
  (let ((xskipChars (concat "^\"`" (mapconcat #'identity xah-brackets ""))))
    (skip-chars-backward xskipChars)
    (push-mark (point) t t)
    (skip-chars-forward xskipChars)))