Customization Hooks

All of the hooks variables described below may be set to a symbol or lambda expression, which will be funcalled; or may be set to a list of symbols or lambda expressions, each of which will be funcalled in turn. Almost all hooks in Emacs work this way. But notice that some of the hooks described below are called with arguments.

bbdb-list-hook

Hook or hooks invoked after the bbdb-list-buffer is filled in. Invoked with no arguments.

bbdb-create-hook

Hook or hooks invoked each time a new bbdb-record is created. Invoked with one argument, the new record. This is called before the record is added to the database. Note that bbdb-change-hook will be called as well.

bbdb-change-hook

Hook or hooks invoked each time a bbdb-record is altered. Invoked with one argument, the record. This is called before the database buffer is modified. Note that if a new bbdb record is created, both this hook and bbdb-create-hook will be called.

bbdb-notice-hook

Hook or hooks invoked each time a bbdb-record is "noticed," that is, each time it is displayed by the news or mail interfaces. Invoked with one argument, the new record. The record need not have been modified for this to be called - use bbdb-change-hook for that. You can use this to, for example, add something to the notes field based on the subject of the current message. It is up to your hook to determine whether it is running in GNUS, VM, MH, or RMAIL, and to act appropriately. Also note that bbdb-change-hook will not be called as a result of any modifications you may make to the record inside this hook. Beware that if the variable bbdb-message-caching-enabled is true (a good idea) then when you are using VM, MH, or RMAIL, this hook will be called only the first time that message is selected. (The GNUS interface does not use caching.) When debugging the value of this hook, it is a good idea to set caching-enabled to nil.

bbdb-after-read-db-hook

Hook or hooks invoked (with no arguments) just after the Insidious Big Brother Database is read in. Note that this can be called more than once if the BBDB is reverted. One possible use for this is to rename the `.bbdb' buffer; for example

(setq bbdb-after-read-db-hook '(lambda () (rename-buffer " bbdb")))

will cause the buffer visiting the bbdb-file to be called " bbdb". The leading space in its name will prevent it from showing up in the buffer list.

bbdb-load-hook

Hook or hooks invoked (with no arguments) when the Insidious Big Brother Database code is first loaded.

bbdb-canonicalize-net-hook

If this is non-nil, it should be a function of one argument: a network address string. (Note that, unlike the other hook-variables described above, this may not be a list of functions.) Whenever the Insidious Big Brother Database "notices" a message, the corresponding network address will be passed to this function first, as a kind of "filter" to do whatever transformations upon it you like before it is compared against or added to the database. For example: it is the case that CS.CMU.EDU is a valid return address for all mail originating at a machine in the .CS.CMU.EDU domain. So, if you wanted all such addresses to be canonically hashed as user@CS.CMU.EDU, instead of as user@somehost.CS.CMU.EDU, you might set this variable to a function like this:

(setq bbdb-canonicalize-net-hook
     '(lambda (addr)
        (cond ((string-match "\\`\\([^@]+@\\).*\\.\\(CS\\.CMU\\.EDU\\)\\'"
                             addr)
               (concat (substring addr (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1))
                       (substring addr (match-beginning 2) (match-end 2))))
              (t addr))))

You could also use this function to rewrite UUCP-style addresses into domain-style addresses, or any number of other things. This function will be called repeatedly until it returns a value EQ to the value passed in. So multiple rewrite rules might apply to a single address. There is an example of the use of this variable in the file bbdb-hooks.el: the function sample-bbdb-canonicalize-net-hook.