How to make a global function without `require`?
reddit / emacs

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Babygau · 2022-12-13 23:02

In .emacs.d I have the following
```
core/lib.el
modules/abc/xyz.el
init.el
early-init.el
```
I have `foo` and others defined in `lib.el` and want these functions
to be available in all `modules` without using `(require 'lib)`

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ieure · 2022-12-13 23:58

You need to [autoload them](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/
html_node/elisp/Autoload.html).

But really, it's poor form to depend on anything without declaring it.
Not just in elisp.

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Babygau · 2022-12-14 00:22

Thank you for your suggestion. I'm moving away from Doom Emacs. It has
some built-in functions and macros such as very useful `map!`,
`after!` macros... which just worked without declaring them. I want to
do the same thing with my config

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codemuncher · 2022-12-14 05:41

You need to load that file lib.el before all other modules.. the
mechanism for doing that is.... (require)

The function itself lives in a global namespace.  So the require is
just about telling emacs which file to load in a way that doesn't
require you to hard code path names all over.  It's line #include
<stdlib.h> in C - where exactly is stdlib.h located?  Well another
mechanism tells the compiler -- in elisp, that's the variable 'load-
path'.

&#x200B;

You could always just be sure to do (load-file "<path to lib.el>")
early in your init.el and then you'd have all those functions
available, but it is fairly brittle - if anything changes in init.el
then all of a sudden your 'foo' function doesn't exist anymore and
then ??? confusing!  Good elisp modules shouldn't magically fail
because a global fn that is loaded for them stopped being loaded for
them.

&#x200B;

In short: why not require?

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Babygau · 2022-12-14 07:41

Many thanks for your clarification. I didn't know function is global
by default. That's interesting. In short, I need `load-path` to make
sure `lib` and `modules` files are available, then make sure that
using `(require 'lib)` before `(require 'xyz)`. By doing so, all
functions in `lib.el` are available in `xyz.el`, am I correct?

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Babygau · 2022-12-14 07:43

@ieure your solution is great but it's not how I want to achieve.
@codemuncher gave me a better explanation.