Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

[Christoph Scholtes]

On Windows, I want to create a sandbox environment for Emacs to run in 
with an experimental configuration without affecting my regular setup.

I create site-startup.el in D:/devel/emacs with the following code:

(setq user-emacs-directory "D:/devel/emacs/dotemacsdotd")
(setenv "HOME" user-emacs-directory)

then invoked Emacs with

emacs -L D:/devel/emacs

where D:/devel/emacs just contains the site-startup.el.

However, Emacs still starts up with the init.el from ~/.emacs.d instead 
of D:/devel/emacs/dotemacsdotd/init.el.

My thought was that site-startup.el was loaded first, changes 
user-emacs-directory and HOME and then init.el is invoked from the new 
user-emacs-directory. Ultimately Emacs is running with dotemacsdotd as 
the new home directory.

Why does this not work? Is there a better way to do this?

Christoph

Re: Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

[Andreas Schwab]

Christoph Scholtes <cschol2112@googlemail.com> writes:

> My thought was that site-startup.el was loaded first

There is nothing that loads such a file.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

[Christoph Scholtes]

Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:

>> My thought was that site-startup.el was loaded first
>
> There is nothing that loads such a file.

No?

From the Emacs manual:

   "Your site may also have a "site startup file"; this is named
`site-start.el', if it exists.  Like `default.el', Emacs finds this
file via the standard search path for Lisp libraries.  Emacs loads this
library before it loads your init file.  To inhibit loading of this
library, use the option `--no-site-file'.  *Note Initial Options::.  We
recommend against using `site-start.el' for changes that some users may
not like.  It is better to put them in `default.el', so that users can
more easily override them.

   You can place `default.el' and `site-start.el' in any of the
directories which Emacs searches for Lisp libraries.  The variable
`load-path' (*note Lisp Libraries::) specifies these directories.  Many
sites put these files in the `site-lisp' subdirectory of the Emacs
installation directory, typically `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp'."

Re: Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

[Andreas Schwab]

Christoph Scholtes <cschol2112@googlemail.com> writes:

> Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:
>
>>> My thought was that site-startup.el was loaded first
>>
>> There is nothing that loads such a file.
>
> No?

No.

>>From the Emacs manual:

Where do you see site-startup.el?

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Sandbox environment for Emacs configuration

[Christoph Scholtes]

On 5/12/2012 10:40 AM, Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Where do you see site-startup.el?

Oops, I meant site-start.el.