A keymap can inherit the bindings of another keymap, which we call the parent keymap. Such a keymap looks like this:
(keymap elements... . parent-keymap)
The effect is that this keymap inherits all the bindings of parent-keymap, whatever they may be at the time a key is looked up, but can add to them or override them with elements.
If you change the bindings in parent-keymap using
define-key or other key-binding functions, these changed
bindings are visible in the inheriting keymap, unless shadowed by the
bindings made by elements. The converse is not true: if you use
define-key to change bindings in the inheriting keymap, these
changes are recorded in elements, but have no effect on
parent-keymap.
The proper way to construct a keymap with a parent is to use
set-keymap-parent; if you have code that directly constructs a
keymap with a parent, please convert the program to use
set-keymap-parent instead.
This returns the parent keymap of keymap. If keymap has no parent,
keymap-parentreturnsnil.
This sets the parent keymap of keymap to parent, and returns parent. If parent is
nil, this function gives keymap no parent at all.If keymap has submaps (bindings for prefix keys), they too receive new parent keymaps that reflect what parent specifies for those prefix keys.
Here is an example showing how to make a keymap that inherits
from text-mode-map:
(let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
(set-keymap-parent map text-mode-map)
map)
A non-sparse keymap can have a parent too, but this is not very
useful. A non-sparse keymap always specifies something as the binding
for every numeric character code without modifier bits, even if it is
nil, so these character's bindings are never inherited from
the parent keymap.