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The takeaway for me (since I use Emacs in a console and not in GUI mode) is `C-x n n` and `C-x n w`. Looks like it could be pretty useful for `M-x replace-regexp` (if I don't want to use query-replace-regexp, and I've got a lot of searching and replacing to do in a particular region.

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indeed. When you want to do a quick and dirty 'replace-string', this command looks very good. I've ended up copying the whole region to scratch to make my edits more than once.

If you use transient-mark-mode (which is on by default these days), you can mark a region and then use replacement commands like query-replace (M-%) that affect just that region.

I had tried that before transient-mark-mode was on by default (Emacs 23?) and it didn't work, but turns out you are 100% correct.

Thanks ramen!

Undo also works on the region, which is amazingly useful.

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