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File Format Conversion

Emacs performs several steps to convert the data in a buffer (text, text properties, and possibly other information) to and from a representation suitable for storing into a file. This section describes the fundamental functions that perform this format conversion, namely insert-file-contents for reading a file into a buffer, and write-region for writing a buffer into a file.

• Overview:		insert-file-contents and write-region.
• Round-Trip:		Using format-alist.
• Piecemeal:		Specifying non-paired conversion.