Timestamp information in .elc files

Timestamp information in .elc files

[Glenn Morris]

.elc files start with a comment like this:

   ;;; Compiled by user@host on Sun Mar  3 23:34:26 2013

I have never used this information, and I can never imagine needing it.
I find it annoying because it means .elc files change on every
compilation. Diffing two trees containing .elc files reports spurious
differences for every single .elc file due to this (admittedly, you can
avoid this by using diff -I).

Is this timestamp useful in any way?

Re: Timestamp information in .elc files

[Paul Eggert]

On 03/08/2013 01:08 AM, Glenn Morris wrote:
> Is this timestamp useful in any way?

It's far more trouble than it's worth.  It's annoyed me in the past, too,
for the same reason it's annoying you.  Let's get rid of it.

Re: Timestamp information in .elc files

[Achim Gratz]

Paul Eggert writes:
> On 03/08/2013 01:08 AM, Glenn Morris wrote:
>> Is this timestamp useful in any way?
>
> It's far more trouble than it's worth.  It's annoyed me in the past, too,
> for the same reason it's annoying you.  Let's get rid of it.

+1


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

Waldorf MIDI Implementation & additional documentation:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfDocs

Re: Timestamp information in .elc files

[Stefan Monnier]

> .elc files start with a comment like this:

>    ;;; Compiled by user@host on Sun Mar  3 23:34:26 2013

Off with their heads!


        Stefan

Re: Timestamp information in .elc files

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Fri, 08 Mar 2013, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> .elc files start with a comment like this:
>> ;;; Compiled by user@host on Sun Mar  3 23:34:26 2013

> Off with their heads!

Please have only their hair cut. ;-)

The full comment is like this:

   ;;; Compiled by user@host on Fri Mar  8 08:59:18 2013
   ;;; from file /path/to/simple.el
   ;;; in Emacs version 24.3
   ;;; with all optimizations.

Gentoo has a script called emacs-updater [1] that uses the version
information from the third line, by matching the following regexp:
[Ee]macs version \([0-9].*\)

It would be nice if this part of the comment could be preserved.

Ulrich

[1] http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/emacs-tools.git;a=blob;f=emacs-updater;hb=refs/heads/emacs-updater