Question

I have written a function init-set-key-mappings that sets all the global keys in .emacs file.

(defun init-set-key-mappings ()
 "All the key mappings go here"
  (let ((mappings (list
                '("\C-ca"   'open-fileline))))
    (mapcar (lambda (mapping)
          (let ((key (car mapping))
                (func (cadr mapping)))
            (progn
              (message (format "map key %s to %s" key func))
              (global-set-key key func))))
        mappings)))

It evaluates fine, but when I press C-c a, Emacs complains “Wrong type argument commandp, (quote open-fileline)”

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: I found the answer. Removing the quote before open-file seems to fix the problem. Why
is it being a symbol the problem? Isn’t this how functions are passed around – as symbols?

Answer 1

You double-quoted the function open-fileline. In the expression

(list '("\C-ca" 'open-fileline)))

the first quote indicates that everything in the following list is quoted. You then added a second quote to open-fileline. Which means the list doesn’t actually contain a symbol as the second element of it’s car, but a quoted symbol. Compare:

(symbolp (cadar (list '("string" 'open-fileline))))

and

(symbolp (cadar (list '("string" open-fileline))))