Re: creating backups in temporary directories

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> I quite often want to email diffs of files I don't have write access
>> to, so I visit the file, write it to /tmp, then edit it, save it,
>> and go to /tmp to run diff between the file and its backup.

> That's not what backups are for.  Why don't you save under a different
> name?  That's what C-x C-w is for.

>> Suggestions:
>> 1) make that the default value - why not write backups in /tmp?

> Because making a "backup" for a file in a place that is regularly
> cleaned out is creating an illusion of security.

Worse yet: creating backup files in /tmp would be a security hole:
some other user seeing you're currently editing /tmp/foo could create
a symlink /tmp/foo~ to some interesting place and then when you save your
file the backup could be placed at that interesting place chosen by
the attacker.


        Stefan