Re: Multiple .emacs files

[floyd@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson)]

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Tim X wrote:
>> Mathias Dahl <brakjoller@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> floyd@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson) writes:
>>>
>>>>> I have played a bit with the -u option, but have yet to get it to work
>>>>> with a config file named .emacsT
>>>>    emacs -q -l ~/.emacsT
>>> A bit of a warning: I think I saw someone mentioning that doing the
>>> above was not exactly like switching your init file. What you do with
>>> the above is turn init file loading off and at the same time telling
>>> emacs to load another file. I am not sure but maybe things like
>>> Customize might not work as you expect (not saving to the .emacsT
>>> file).
>>>
>>> Someone who knows more can probably fill in here, or you can search
>>> the archives.
>>>
>> I have seen others report exactly this problem, so I think it
>> is a
>> real concern. In particular, you may find that when you go to save
>> customize settings, it will fail or save it where you did not expect.
>> There is a variable that customize uses which may get around this
>> problem if you set it explicitly, but I seem to remember someone
>> reporting problems getting this to work as desired/expected.
>
>Two variables, actually: user-init-file and custom-file.  Even if there
>are some lingering bugs, it would be a good idea to put something like
>this as the the first form in Floyd's ~/.emacsT file:
>
>(setq user-init-file load-file-name)

I gave that particular example to the OP as a "solution" to the
specific question, but I certainly do not use that.

However, I do something similar fairly often.  The actual init
file is absolutely minimal...  essentially everything it
contains is common to any and all desired invocations of
(X)Emacs.  There are several other init files that are specified
with either the -l command line option (via aliased commands so
that it is not necessary to actually type it in, or even
remember what it is), or by various tricks in the init file that
can determine which other files to use.

Examples for aliased commands are: for reading news

   xemacs -l ~/.gemacs -f gnus

and to start a gnuserve process

   xemacs -l ~/.semacs

and so on.  (The actual aliases or shell functions used can also
include various other command line options, such as geometery
and window titles...)

Things that can be differentiated in the init file itself are,
for example, whether it is Emacs or XEmacs that is being
executed, or which version of either.

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson            <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@apaflo.com