emacs ( recompile -y )

Question

Is it possible to pass a "-yes" flag to the 'recompile' command in emacs?

Excuse my complete lack of (e)lisp know-how. I got sick of going outside Emacs to compile my latex code, so i added the following key binding to my .emacs:

(global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'recompile);

Is it possible to automatically answer 'yes' to the following prompt that might appear: "A compilation process is running; kill it? (yes or no)."

Also, is it possible to make the window that opens and shows the output to scroll to the bottom automatically. The interesting stuff is typically down there. Maybe its possible to chain the following command after recompile: "C-x o, end-of-buffer".

Thanks!

Answer 1

Here's some code to solve your first problem (interrupting the current compilation):

(defun interrupt-and-recompile ()
  "Interrupt old compilation, if any, and recompile."
  (interactive)
  (ignore-errors (kill-compilation))
  (recompile))

For your second problem (scrolling the compilation output), just customize the user setting compilation-scroll-output.

Answer 2

This behaviour is governed by the compilation-always-kill global variable. Customize it via customize-variable and set it to t.

Not sure which version of emacs first had this, but 26 and newer certainly does.