How to open and edit a file from within a function

Hej fellows, I tried to find a solution to this question on my own for quite a while now. I'm rather certain that I am also phrasing my problem the wrong way, because it is impossible that it is that hard to find. I want to write a function that opens my org agenda file(s) in buffer(s), operates on said buffer(s) and then saves them. More concretely, I want to have `org-sort-entities` sort my [`todos.org`](https://todos.org) file every time I used org-capture (using `org-capture-after-finalize-hook`). I am grateful for both pointers and complete solutions. As I said, for some reason I can't wrap my head around the way emacs opens files when it doesn't happen upon my initiative. Have a good day, fellows :) **SOLVED:** I was able to solve the problem! Thanks a bunch, u/MitchellMarquez42 and u/EternalMigrainity! Now I will say that the pointer provided by u/MitchellMarquez42 helped me find a solution that is clearer to me on first sight than the other one. Nonetheless, thank you both - not least because I not know that `with-current-buffer` and `with-temp-file` can use `find-file` as input. I had seen both elements - `with-*-*` and `find-file` \- but would not have come up with the idea to combine the two. This will make it that much easier to work with files in the future :-\* **EDIT:** For some reason, it did not work properly when invoked that way from a hook. I would add a new todo entry via org-capture and the org-agenda-file would not be sorted. DOES NOT WORK (defun org-sort-agenda-files-after-capture (file-list) (mapcar #'(lambda (file) (with-current-buffer (find-file file) (mark-whole-buffer) (org-sort-entries nil ?p) (save-buffer) (kill-buffer))) file-list)) (use-package org-capture :hook (org-capture-after-finalize . (org-sort-agenda-files-after-capture org-agenda-files))) Then I decided to try again removing the argument from the function, hardcoding `org-agenda-files` into the `org-sort-agenda-files-after-capture` function instead of the `file-list` parameter. It turns out that it worked. I don't know why. If you happen to know, I'd love to be enlightened :-) DOES WORK (defun org-sort-agenda-files-after-capture () (mapcar #'(lambda (file) (with-current-buffer (find-file file) (mark-whole-buffer) (org-sort-entries nil ?p) (save-buffer) (kill-buffer))) org-agenda-files)) (use-package org-capture :hook (org-capture-after-finalize . org-sort-agenda-files-after-capture)) ​

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pointer lol xd https://pastebin.com/Rc9vV0Fu

If this is not what you want then try clarifying a bit I don't know shit about org

My code sorts entries invisibly, if you want to see everything happen in front of you then you could just have your org buffers appear via find-file and then use org-sort-entries and finally save the buffer, also, you should consider creating a KBD Macro for sorting with org-sort-entries that you can call from your code, it'll make things much easier.

use dolist instead of dotimes sorry lmaOLOOOOO

Emacs opens files with the command `find-file`. This opens the file in a new buffer, and returns the name of that buffer. You can use `with-current-buffer` to execute editing commands in said buffer, and `save-buffer` to save the buffer. So something like: ``` (with-current-buffer (find-file "/path/to/todos.org") (org-sort-entities) ;; I don't know how Agenda works but should be pretty straightforward (save-buffer) ;; optional kill-buffer if you want ) ``` The other commenter links a more complete example that opens multiple files. This is just a basic outline of how I'd approach the problem.