How to insert a backslash?

Question

So I was looking for a way to save Emacs keyboard macros as elisp code - substituting the Emacs key description language that is used by `'insert-kbd-macro` to the actual functions that are mapped to the keys of the macro. In doing so, I was looking at first retrieving the functions mapped to keys, followed by rendering these functions as strings to be written into the current buffer ``` (symbol-name (key-binding "\C-xo")) ``` Would return the string `"other-window"` However, currently `insert-kbd-macro` saves macros in caret notation (not the nice human-readable one) (eg: `^P` vs `\C-p`) The function `key-binding` seems to only accept the human readable notation. So in an effort to convert to human readable notation, i looked at the function `key-description` ``` (key-description "\346") ``` returns `"M-f"` However in order to be accepted by `key-binding` , it requires notation in the form `"\M-f") an obvious way to do this would be `(concat "\" (key-description "\346")` However ema…

Accepted Answer

The answer is Don't insert /'s - use `read-kbd-macro` to get readable text that also works with `key-description` and `key-binding`.

```
(key-description (read-kbd-macro "M-f"))

(key-binding (read-kbd-macro "M-f"))
```

If you really want to insert a `\`, as you noticed in your comment, you can do so via

```
(insert "\")
```

But, to save you a lot of angst, you might want to abandon this effort as it's not currently possible to translate keyboard macros into elisp in a general fashion. See the question "Convert Emacs macro into Elisp".

How to insert a backslash?

Solution

Problem