Word Movement

There are two buffer-local variables which control the syntax of words in each buffer.

Variable: word-regexp

This buffer-local variable contains a regular expression which will match each character allowed to be in a word.

The standard value is `[a-zA-Z0-9]', i.e. all alphanumeric characters.

Variable: word-not-regexp

A buffer-local variable. Holds a regular expression which will match anything not in a word.

The normal value is `[^a-zA-Z0-9]|$', i.e. anything which is not alphanumeric or the end of a line.

The following functions use these variables when deciding what is and what isn't a word.

Function: forward-word &optional count pos move

Return the position of the first character after the end of the word at position pos (or the cursor). count is the number of words to move, negative values mean go backwards.

If move is non-nil then the cursor is moved to the result.

Note that pos is not altered.

Function: backward-word &optional count pos move

Similar to forward-word except that it works backwards. In fact, all this function does is call forward-word with count negated.

Function: word-start &optional pos

Returns the position of the first character of the word at pos (or the cursor position).

Function: in-word-p &optional pos

This function returns t if pos (or the cursor) is in a word.

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