This page tells you how emacs determine what major mode to load when you open a file, and how you can change the setup.
Use “auto-mode-alist” to associate a major mode with file name extension. Use it like this:
;; setup files ending in “.js” to open in js2-mode (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.js\\'" . js2-mode))
“auto-mode-alist” is a built-in variable. Its value is a list of pairs. ((info "(elisp) Association Lists")) First element is a regex string. The second element is a mode name.
Note: in the elisp code above, the double backslash in the string \\.js\\'
is used to escape the backslash. So, the regex engine just got \.js\'. The \. is to match a period. The \' is one of emacs special regex syntax, to match end of a string (not including end of a line that's not end of string. End of line is $). (See also: emacs regex tutorial.)
(info "(elisp) Regexp Backslash")
You can see the value of “auto-mode-alist” by calling describe-variable.
The “magic-mode-alist” is for associating first line of a file with a mode. (when the line otherwise isn't the unix shebang #!… or embedded elisp variable.) Use it like this:
;; if first line of file matches, activate nxml-mode (add-to-list 'magic-mode-alist '("<!DOCTYPE html .+DTD XHTML .+>" . nxml-mode) )
The “magic-mode-alist” is variable. Its value is a list of pairs. The first element is a regex string, the second is a mode name (of type symbol). Emacs tries to match the first line of a file to values in “magic-mode-alist”. If there's a match, it sets the buffer to that mode.
Emacs determines what mode to activate by the following mechanisms, in order. If a match is found, the process stops.
-*- mode: xyz-*-, emacs will load “xyz-mode”. This is from a general mechanism for emacs to load elisp variables. (See: (info "(emacs) File Variables").) This has the top priority, but this mechanism is not the usual way for programing language files to associate with a major mode.#!/usr/bin/perl) and match it with interpreter-mode-alist.(info "(emacs) Choosing Modes")
Note that when you install a new package, some has the file association setting code within the package, while others ask you to put a few lines in your emacs init file instead.