found this page: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NumbersInRegisters

Registers are useful tools when writing KeyboardMacros. Notice how you can store numbers in registers, insert them again, and increment them in the register.

See the Node Keeping Numbers in Registers in the EmacsManual.

Example session:

‘C-u 1000 C-x r n x’
Store 1000 in register x
`C-x (‘
Start a keyboard macro
‘C-x r i x’
Insert the number in register x into the buffer
`C-x r + x’
Increment the number by one
`<end> <newline>
Do something else
`C-x )’
End keyboard macro definition

Now run ‘C-u 50 C-x e’ to run the macro 50 times.

See IncrementNumber, ReplaceRegexp, ReplaceCount or RenumberList for alternative that don’t involve registers. Continue reading Numbers in Emacs →