Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

[reader]

I've used an external emacs-custom file for years to keep .emacs a
little leaner.  Its proven to be a good choice many times.

Now I've moved to an unfamiliar os (winXP) for certain kinds of video
work.  Dragging along my old and familiar editor .. emacs.

On the win OS some things are a little hinky but this is really a weird
one.  Reminds me of the old joke about getting the Optic nerve tangled
up with the Sphincter muscle and ending up with a ... well `unclean'
view of things.

In this case I've gotten something to do with mail tangled up with
.emacs-custom file.  It keeps trying to write part of a mail message
to the custom file.  Whenever I close gnus or send a news post
something like this gets written to .emacs-custom:
       (custom-set-variables
        ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
        ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
        '(canlock-password "3931d41841769fd6053e719084096803d2381412"))
       (custom-set-faces
        ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
        ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
     )
     From: reader@newsguy.com
     X-Draft-From: ("rec.woodworking" "")

The first part looks sort of normal although I have no idea what a
`canlock-password' is all about, but the partial mail header is just
wrong.

Once this happens and I close emacs.... on next start of emacs, the
init process finds that cruft and errors out.

My init files are setup as  close as I could get them to my old unix
setup.  But I haven't used the customize stuff at all yet.  So
technically it seems nothing should be in  ~/.emacs-custom.

Re: Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

[Kevin Rodgers]

reader@newsguy.com wrote:
 > In this case I've gotten something to do with mail tangled up with
 > .emacs-custom file.  It keeps trying to write part of a mail message
 > to the custom file.  Whenever I close gnus or send a news post
 > something like this gets written to .emacs-custom:
 >        (custom-set-variables
 >         ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
 >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 >         '(canlock-password "3931d41841769fd6053e719084096803d2381412"))
 >        (custom-set-faces
 >         ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
 >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 >      )
 >      From: reader@newsguy.com
 >      X-Draft-From: ("rec.woodworking" "")
 >
 > The first part looks sort of normal although I have no idea what a
 > `canlock-password' is all about, but the partial mail header is just
 > wrong.
 >
 > Once this happens and I close emacs.... on next start of emacs, the
 > init process finds that cruft and errors out.
 >
 > My init files are setup as  close as I could get them to my old unix
 > setup.  But I haven't used the customize stuff at all yet.  So
 > technically it seems nothing should be in  ~/.emacs-custom.

Googling for "canlock gnus emacs" yields
http://list-archive.xemacs.org/xemacs-users-ru/200305/msg00000.html

	** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News.
	
	This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting.  It is
	used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and
	superseding).  Gnus generates a random password string the first time
	you post a message, and saves it in your ~/.emacs using the Custom
	system.  While the variable is called `canlock-password', it is not
	security sensitive data.  Publishing your canlock string on the web
	will not allow anyone to be able to anything she could not already do.
	The behaviour can be changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'.

Apropos is your friend,
-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

[Harry Putnam]

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> writes:

> reader@newsguy.com wrote:
>  > In this case I've gotten something to do with mail tangled up with
>  > .emacs-custom file.  It keeps trying to write part of a mail message
>  > to the custom file.  Whenever I close gnus or send a news post
>  > something like this gets written to .emacs-custom:
>  >        (custom-set-variables
>  >         ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
>  >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>  >         '(canlock-password "3931d41841769fd6053e719084096803d2381412"))
>  >        (custom-set-faces
>  >         ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
>  >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>  >      )
>  >      From: reader@newsguy.com
>  >      X-Draft-From: ("rec.woodworking" "")
>  >
>  > The first part looks sort of normal although I have no idea what a
>  > `canlock-password' is all about, but the partial mail header is just
>  > wrong.
>  >
>  > Once this happens and I close emacs.... on next start of emacs, the
>  > init process finds that cruft and errors out.
>  >
>  > My init files are setup as  close as I could get them to my old unix
>  > setup.  But I haven't used the customize stuff at all yet.  So
>  > technically it seems nothing should be in  ~/.emacs-custom.
>
> Googling for "canlock gnus emacs" yields
> http://list-archive.xemacs.org/xemacs-users-ru/200305/msg00000.html
>
> 	** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News.
> 	
> 	This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting.  It is
> 	used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and
> 	superseding).  Gnus generates a random password string the first time
> 	you post a message, and saves it in your ~/.emacs using the Custom
> 	system.  While the variable is called `canlock-password', it is not
> 	security sensitive data.  Publishing your canlock string on the web
> 	will not allow anyone to be able to anything she could not already do.
> 	The behaviour can be changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'.
>
> Apropos is your friend,

Not really.  Finding out what it is and that it can be turned off is
good of course, but why is it getting written to .emacs-custom in a
way that breaks init?

Re: Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

[Kevin Rodgers]

Harry Putnam wrote:
 > Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> writes:
 >>Apropos is your friend,
 >
 > Not really.  Finding out what it is and that it can be turned off is
 > good of course, but why is it getting written to .emacs-custom in a
 > way that breaks init?

The Gnus maintainers are lonely, and are trying to motivate their users
to submit a bug report.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers

Re: Something smelly here. [.emacs-custom file]

[Reiner Steib]

On Fri, Apr 23 2004, Harry Putnam wrote:

>> reader@newsguy.com wrote:
[...]
>>  > Whenever I close gnus or send a news post something like this
>>  > gets written to .emacs-custom:

>>  >        (custom-set-variables
>>  >         ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
>>  >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>>  >         '(canlock-password "3931d41841769fd6053e719084096803d2381412"))
>>  >        (custom-set-faces
>>  >         ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
>>  >         ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>>  >      )
>>  >      From: reader@newsguy.com
>>  >      X-Draft-From: ("rec.woodworking" "")
>>  >
>>  > The first part looks sort of normal although I have no idea what a
>>  > `canlock-password' is all about, but the partial mail header is just
>>  > wrong.
[...]
> Not really.  Finding out what it is and that it can be turned off is
> good of course, but why is it getting written to .emacs-custom in a
> way that breaks init?

Looking at `message-canlock-password' I can hardly believe that an
error in message.el is responsible for that:

,----
| (defun message-canlock-password ()
|   "The password used by message for cancel locks.
| This is the value of `canlock-password', if that option is non-nil.
| Otherwise, generate and save a value for `canlock-password' first."
|   (unless canlock-password
|     (customize-save-variable 'canlock-password (message-canlock-generate))
|     (setq canlock-password-for-verify canlock-password))
|   canlock-password)
`----

Can you reproduce it?  Maybe it's best to submit a bug report via `M-x
gnus-bug RET'.  I suspect something fishy in your setup.

Maybe you can also edebug the functions `customize-save-variable'
and/or `custom-save-all' to see what's happening.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo--- PGP key available via WWW   http://rsteib.home.pages.de/