(xemacs.info)Syntax Change

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27.5.2 Altering Syntax Information
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It is possible to alter a character's syntax table entry by storing a
new number in the appropriate element of the syntax table, but it would
be hard to determine what number to use.  Emacs therefore provides a
command that allows you to specify the syntactic properties of a
character in a convenient way.

   `M-x modify-syntax-entry' is the command to change a character's
syntax.  It can be used interactively and is also used by major modes
to initialize their own syntax tables.  Its first argument is the
character to change.  The second argument is a string that specifies the
new syntax.  When called from Lisp code, there is a third, optional
argument, which specifies the syntax table in which to make the change.
If not supplied, or if this command is called interactively, the third
argument defaults to the current buffer's syntax table.

  1. The first character in the string specifies the syntactic class.
     It is one of the characters in the previous table (Note: Syntax
     Entry).

  2. The second character is the matching delimiter.  For a character
     that is not an opening or closing delimiter, this should be a
     space, and may be omitted if no following characters are needed.

  3. The remaining characters are flags.  The flag characters allowed
     are:

    `1'
          Flag this character as the first of a two-character comment
          starting sequence.

    `2'
          Flag this character as the second of a two-character comment
          starting sequence.

    `3'
          Flag this character as the first of a two-character comment
          ending sequence.

    `4'
          Flag this character as the second of a two-character comment
          ending sequence.

   Use `C-h s' (`describe-syntax') to display a description of the
contents of the current syntax table.  The description of each
character includes both the string you have to pass to
`modify-syntax-entry' to set up that character's current syntax, and
some English to explain that string if necessary.