Often you need to insert a time-stamp within a file while working in GNU/Emacs. One way of doing it is to type
C-u C-! date
which will print a string something like
Sun Feb 24 00:11:59 IST 2013
What if you want to print a formatted time string ? and to bind that action with specific key strokes to use within GNU/Emacs ?
Open your ~/.emacs file and add following code to it.
(defun insert-current-time() ''insert the current time'' (interactive ''*'') (insert (format-time-string ''%l.%M %p'')) ) (global-set-key ''\C-x\C-t'' 'insert-current-time)
reload ~/.emacs file using
M-x eval-buffer
now you can print the time any where within a file by typing
C-x C-t
or by using the function insert-current-time
Note that the above code will print the time as
12.41 AM
if you want to print a entire time-stamp, replace line starting with (insert ....
from above code snippet with
(insert (current-time-string))