emacs v28.2 creates some times on exit previously deleted ~/.emacs.d

emacs v28.2 creates some times on exit previously deleted ~/.emacs.d

[Alexandros Prekates]

emacs v28.2 on Devuan 5.

Wanting to use ~/.config/emacs for my init file i deleted
~/.emacs.d and ~/.emacs as proposed in
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Find-Init.html
in order for emacs to use my ~/.config/emacs/init.el file

After casual use. editing org files and using C-x C-c to exit 
.emacs.d is created (timestamps are minute close to my exit)  with a
bunch of eln-cache files. So on restarting emacs wont see anymore my
~/.config/emacs/init.el .

That happend after an hour of use and having closed a couple of times
emacs with no problem.

It was proposed to me to set user-emacs-directory. But where could i
put it since my init would be bypassed ? 

Alexandros.

Re: emacs v28.2 creates some times on exit previously deleted ~/.emacs.d

[Alexandros Prekates]

After spenting a couple of hours on my issue with eln-cache creating
.emacs.d (thus breaking my effort to use a ~/.config/emacs) i found
that in bug-gnu-emacs there was a small discussion one year ago about
where should eln-cache put its files
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2022-07/msg01120.html

So so far it seems propable to me that there is eln-cache is breaking 
the functionality mentioned in
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Find-Init.html

There ' says:
Emacs can also look in an XDG-compatible location for init.el, the
default is the directory ~/.config/emacs. This can be overridden by
setting XDG_CONFIG_HOME in your environment, its value replaces
~/.config in the name of the default XDG init file. However ~/.emacs.d,
~/.emacs, and ~/.emacs.el are always preferred if they exist, which
means that you must delete or rename them in order to use the XDG
location. 

Alexandros

Re: emacs v28.2 creates some times on exit previously deleted ~/.emacs.d

[Alexandros Prekates]

For the moment i think that i'd better stick to defaults and forget
about XDG init . Unless i want to push emacs to use an XDG dir for my
init file but other parts of emacs ,like i guess eln cache ,find XDG
vague and not decisive about where to put it's files. 


Alexandros.

Re: emacs v28.2 creates some times on exit previously deleted ~/.emacs.d

[Nikolay Kudryavtsev]

First of all, ever since 29.1 you can do this:

Emacs now supports setting 'user-emacs-directory' via '--init-directory'.
Use the '--init-directory' command-line option to set
'user-emacs-directory'.

So maybe upgrading to it is worth it for your case.

As for XDG_CONFIG_HOME, note that in the discussion you've linked to, 
XDG_CACHE_HOME is discussed, which is not the same thing as 
XDG_CONFIG_HOME, AFAIK.

As for the eln files being the culprit, what is the value of 
user-emacs-directory when that happens? Is it the XDG one or ~/.emacs.d?