The kill ring has a default maximum length of sixty items; this number is too large for an explanation. Instead, set it to four. Please evaluate the following:
(setq old-kill-ring-max kill-ring-max) (setq kill-ring-max 4)
Then, please copy each line of the following indented example into the kill ring. You may kill each line with C-k or mark it and copy it with M-w.
(In a read-only buffer, such as the *info* buffer, the kill
command, C-k (kill-line), will not remove the text,
merely copy it to the kill ring. However, your machine may beep at
you. Alternatively, for silence, you may copy the region of each line
with the M-w (kill-ring-save) command. You must mark
each line for this command to succeed, but it does not matter at which
end you put point or mark.)
Please invoke the calls in order, so that five elements attempt to fill the kill ring:
first some text second piece of text third line fourth line of text fifth bit of text
Then find the value of kill-ring by evaluating
kill-ring
It is:
("fifth bit of text" "fourth line of text"
"third line" "second piece of text")
The first element, ‘first some text’, was dropped.
To return to the old value for the length of the kill ring, evaluate:
(setq kill-ring-max old-kill-ring-max)