From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sebastian Tennant Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: An alternative to a monolithic ~/.emacs init file Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:04:35 +0200 Message-ID: <87fxzs4pa4.fsf@moley.moleskin.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1193756770 7273 80.91.229.12 (30 Oct 2007 15:06:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:06:10 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 30 16:06:13 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Imseu-0000yA-6A for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:05:49 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Imsek-00074X-66 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:05:26 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ImseR-00071Q-Tg for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:05:08 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ImseR-00070a-9F for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:05:07 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ImseR-00070R-4j for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:05:07 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2] helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1ImseQ-0000Z4-WE for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:05:07 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1ImseB-0002gv-FC for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:04:51 +0000 Original-Received: from 85.105.17.65 ([85.105.17.65]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:04:51 +0000 Original-Received: from sebyte by 85.105.17.65 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:04:51 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 34 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 85.105.17.65 User-Agent: Gnus/5.110007 (No Gnus v0.7) Emacs/22.1 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:9g8CKIa61KVt2sjafIHrrVj2ZOA= X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:48923 My ~/.emacs reads like this: ;;; generate auto-autoloads.el in ~/elisp/dotemacs/ (let ((generated-autoload-file "~/elisp/dotemacs/auto-autoloads.el") (backup-inhibited t)) (apply 'update-directory-autoloads '("~/elisp/lib/")) (kill-buffer (file-name-nondirectory generated-autoload-file))) ;;; load dotemacs/*.el (including auto-autoloads.el) (mapc (lambda (f) (load f)) (split-string (shell-command-to-string "find ~/elisp/dotemacs -name *.el"))) That's it, essentially. With this arrangement, library functions I've written that I don't always want to load at startup, but I do want to have to hand, go in ~/elisp/lib, and customisations (and functions I do always want to load at startup) go in ~/elisp/dotemacs. I can put my customisations and functions in as many .el files as I like within their respective directories, making it much easier to organise things generally. And to ensure a library function is always to hand (but not loaded) I simply need to remember to include an autoload cookie (;;;###autoload) in the library file, and an autoload form will be dynamically constructed and called at startup, i.e., there's no longer any need to write autoload forms manually any more. It's a win-win is it not? It works for me. Sebastian