Emulate keyboard input from elisp

Hello all, I have been playing with keymaps and wrapper commands a lot. And something I have come to realise is that a lot of stuff could be implemented really fast by sending arbitrary key sequences. Keyboard macros seem limited to me : they look more like a succession of commands than a succession of keys. Two examples I could not achieve with macros (maybe I'm doing it wrong) \- Prepare a command : for example I want to prepare a call to isearch, with foo pre-typed into the minibuffer. When I do it the macro way, the macro will *execute* the command *isearch foo* \- Define an alias for partial key-bindings : let's say I want to alias *C-x r* to *C-r*, so that i can type *C-r t* instead of C-x r t (which is bound to #'string-rectangle). I could not make a keyboard macro work since C-x r is not bound to anything Is there anyway to send arbitrary key sequences to the emacs interpreter from elisp ? ​ Thanks !

Would general-simulate-key from general.el work for these use-cases?

Id imagine `C-x r` is bound to a keymap, not to nothing. So you bind `C-r` to that keymap. `C-h k C-x r t` should tell you what keymap it is bound in (if i remember correctly, im away from my computer at the moment).

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but does not this come pretty close: (let ((events (listify-key-sequence "the keys to type"))) (setq unread-input-method-events (nconc events unread-input-method-events)))

> Is there anyway to send arbitrary key sequences to the emacs interpreter from elisp ? Yes, you can push events onto `unread-command-events`.

See the package `with-simulated-input`.

I've seen it done like (with tabs and return/newline): (setq unread-command-events (mapcar 'identity "///ssh:datpi:/home/pi/no\\tex\\t/do\\tma\\tce\\t\\n"))

Actually, it's a key combination "rt" that is part of c-x-map like the rest of "r"* binds. A keymap would definitely be better...

>(setq unread-input-method-events (nconc events unread-input-method-events))) Can confirm it works flawlessly in both cases, thanks a lot !

This works perfectly out of the box thanks ! After checking out its source code it does use unread-command-events and listify-key-sequence functions described in other comments

Interesting package, thanks ! The possibility to add wait timer can be useful

Thanks, the unread-command-events did work in my case

Thanks, it worked !

Thank you all for your helpful answers Both unread-command-events and unread-input-method-events worked in my tests (defun gen-input(KEYS) (setq unread-command-events (nconc (listify-key-sequence (kbd KEYS)) unread-command-events))) Using general-simulate-keys seems to be the most fool-proof approach : it returns a new command (named after the key-sequence you used). This means that you can directly rebind it (global-set-key my-binding (general-simulate-keys "C-s foo"))