On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 07:58:47AM -0400, Nicholas Papadonis wrote:
> I downloaded the mit-scheme source and encounter the following behavior when opening a file named “runtime.pkg”.
> 
> <— snip —>
> “The local variables list in runtime.pkg contains values that may not be safe (*)”
> “Do you want to apply it?”
> “Please type y, n, or ! or C-v to scroll”
> 
> Then I answer “n” and the same screen is presented again.
> 
> Finally the mode line indicates “Scheme Gambit/A”
> <— snip —>
> 
> Does anyone know what is causing this behavior vs just simply loading the buffer?  How do I disable this behavior?
> 
> I’m not sure why Emacs is trying to evaluate a buffer when I have not instructed it to do so.

It's not trying to evaluate the whole buffer. Just some
variables which configure Emacs. Those can be set in the
file. Some are considered "safe", some not. In the latter
case you are asked.

See "File Variables" in the Emacs documentation for the
whole story. If you haven't got a local copy, you can
have it online here [1].

You can see them either at the file's very top, or at
its very bottom. Depending on your needs, you can remove
them, configure Emacs to treat them as non-dangerous, or
tell Emacs to ignore all this stuff (cf. configuration
variable `enable-local-variables').

Cheers

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/File-Variables.html#File-Variables
-- t