Re: delete-region - is their a way to get the deleted text?

[Stefan Monnier]

> ,------------------------------------------------------------------
> | (delete-region START END)
> | Delete the text between START and END.
> | This command deletes buffer text without modifying the kill ring.
> `------------------------------------------------------------------
> If its not in the kill ring - is there any other way to get the text
> that deleted, or is it simply gone and lost?

By and large it's gone and lost.  What you can do:
- copy the text before calling the function (then try and figure out
  which part of the text was deleted).
- make sure the function is called with undo enabled, then look for the
  deleted string in the undo log (that's how delete-and-extract-region
  was originally coded, back when I wrote it in Elisp).
- temporarily advise delete-region so it stashes its result in
  some variable.
- even nastier hacks can be imagined, of course.


        Stefan