Opening files without activating any modes
reddit / emacs

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danderzei · 2022-12-07 01:41

I have a [function in a package](https://github.com/pprevos/citar-
denote/blob/185ab89244deda00770bd44c3fee20400091a9df/citar-
denote.el#L76) I am working on that reads a bunch of Org files,
extracts metadata and saves that in a list.

The problem I am facing is that Org mode enables all minor modes (such
as LaTeX preview) while reading the file. This makes the function
slow. I also need to manually kill these files. I only want their
metadata.

Is there a way to temporarily open a file without activating any modes
to just extract data I need and close it? Something like:

    (with-temp-buffer FILE-NAME (CODE))

​

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L-Szos · 2022-12-07 02:00

The function `find-file-literally` should open a file in fundamental
mode.

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ieure · 2022-12-07 02:05

You can also create a temp buffer and `insert-file-contents`.
Further, you could erase the buffer when you're done and insert
another file, if you're processing more than one.

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danderzei · 2022-12-07 02:42

> find-file-literally

Excellent - massive speed improvement. Thanks!

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ljgatreddit · 2022-12-07 06:39

(let ((buffer (find-file-literally "path/to/file.org")))
        (with-current-buffer buffer
            (goto-char (point-min))
            ;; Extract metadata here
            )
        (kill-buffer buffer))