[ale] [Slightly OT] Emacs question.

[Michael B. Trausch]

I cannot find what this is called, but when you have files and you want
them to come up in a certain mode (like, say, sql-mode) you can put:

-- -*- sql -*-

to make it enter SQL mode.  I would have thought that this would be a
file's "mode line," but as it happens, Emacs refers to that wonderfully
useful little bar above the minibuffer as the mode line.  I cannot think
of what the title of the -*- ... -*- line would be, and I want to know
what options I can use within it.  For example, how to set sql mode,
with the postgres recursive mode enabled.  -*- sql -*- does it for me
(once I have manually enabled postgres in a session, anyway), but I
would like to do it automatically.  I have tried:

  -*- sql[postgres] -*- (Ignoring unknown mode sql[postgres]-mode)
  -*- sql:postgres -*- (The local variables list in ... contains values
that may not be safe)
  -*- sql-postgres -*- (Ignoring unknown mode sql-postgres-mode)
  -*- sql(postgres) -*- (Ignoring unknown mode sql(postgres)-mode)

Anybody know how to do what I am trying to do, or, even better, what the
little setting line in a typical text file is so that I can look up what
the options are for it?  I so far have not happened across it by chance,
and searching has yielded me nothing but TONS of informational tidbits
like "'M-x display-time' turns on a neato clock with system load!" but
nothing about using -*- in emacs files.  (Actually, I think I learned
about that by seeing another file in a project somewhere use it... but I
don't remember where now...)

	- Mike

-- 
"Fate: Protects fools, children, and ships called /Enterprise/."
                               -- William T. Riker, ST:TNG, "Contagion"


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