GNU Emacs Manual - Unasked-for Search

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.

### Spontaneous Entry to Incremental Search

If Emacs spontaneously displays ``I-search:'` at the bottom of the screen, it means that the terminal is sending `C-s` and `C-q` according to the poorly designed xon/xoff "flow control" protocol.

If this happens to you, your best recourse is to put the terminal in a mode where it will not use flow control, or give it so much padding that it will never send a `C-s`. (One way to increase the amount of padding is to set the variable `baud-rate` to a larger value. Its value is the terminal output speed, measured in the conventional units of baud.)

If you don't succeed in turning off flow control, the next best thing is to tell Emacs to cope with it. To do this, call the function `enable-flow-control`.

Typically there are particular terminal types with which you must use flow control. You can conveniently ask for flow control on those terminal types only, using `enable-flow-control-on`. For example, if you find you must use flow control on VT-100 and H19 terminals, put the following in your ``.emacs'` file:

    (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")

When flow control is enabled, you must type `C-\` to get the effect of a `C-s`, and type `C-^` to get the effect of a `C-q`. (These aliases work by means of keyboard translations; see section Keyboard Translations.)

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.