# Calling Phone Numbers from Emacs with Twinkle

DevFeed: [Calling Phone Numbers from Emacs with Twinkle](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/emacs-is-twinkling-here-34348.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tapoueh.org/blog/2009/09/emacs-is-twinkling-here/>)

Author: Dimitri Fontaine PostgreSQL Major Contributor; Author

Published: 2009-09-24T16:08:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Dimitri Fontaine](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/dimitri-fontaine.md>)

Topics: [Emacs](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/emacs.md>), [Shell](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/shell.md>), [Command-line interface](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cli.md>)

Tags: [command](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/command.md>), [emacs](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/emacs.md>), [shell](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/shell.md>)

## AI overview

A short Emacs tutorial provides a function that calls a phone number at point or in the selected region through Twinkle. It removes non-numeric characters except the plus sign before making the call.

## Source excerpt

So you have a rolodex like database in your Emacs, or you have this phone number in a mail and you want to call it. It happens you have VoIP setup and you're using Twinkle to make your calls. Maybe you'll then find this function useful: (defun twinkle-call-symbol-or-region () "Call the phone number at point (symbol seems good enough), or in region" (interactive) (shell-command-to-string (format "twinkle --cmd 'call %s'" (replace-regexp-in-string "[^0-9+]" "" (if (use-region-p) (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end)) (thing-at-point 'symbol)))))) It happens that symbol is better than word here because some phone numbers begin with +. And some contains / or . as separators, or some other variations (spaces) so as the number is easy to read for human eyes. Twinkle will not like this.