Remote .emacs file

Remote .emacs file

[Leonid Grinberg]

Hello all,

I am a long-time Perl programmer, but unfortunately only know
Emacs-Lisp on a theoretical level. However, I do use Emacs a lot, and
have a relatively small, but still useful .emacs file. It has
configurations in it, without which I am starting to feel
uncomfortable. I use Emacs on many different machines (~5), and it
would be nice to have a standard .emacs file.

In Perl, I could easily put one on the web, and then have Perl
download it and use eval() to load the functions in it. However, I do
not know how to do this with Elisp.

Does anyone out there know (of a way to do it, or of another way)? I
would be very greatful if you told me! Thanks in advance!

--
Leonid Grinberg
lgrinberg@gmail.com
http://www.lgrinberg.org

Re: Remote .emacs file

[liyer.vijay]

Leonid Grinberg wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am a long-time Perl programmer, but unfortunately only know
> Emacs-Lisp on a theoretical level. However, I do use Emacs a lot, and
> have a relatively small, but still useful .emacs file. It has
> configurations in it, without which I am starting to feel
> uncomfortable. I use Emacs on many different machines (~5), and it
> would be nice to have a standard .emacs file.
>
> In Perl, I could easily put one on the web, and then have Perl
> download it and use eval() to load the functions in it. However, I do
> not know how to do this with Elisp.
>
> Does anyone out there know (of a way to do it, or of another way)? I
> would be very greatful if you told me! Thanks in advance!

Either I don't understand your problem or the answer is very easy.

Emacs reads the .emacs file from the user's home directory on loading.
Why not just get your perl script to download the file from whereever
and save it as ~/.emacs before starting emacs?

If emacs is already running and you want to load some file, M-x
load-file RET ~/.emacs RET is your solution.

This is assuming that your different computers are unix based.  I don't
know what you'd do on windows.

Cheers
Vijay

Re: Remote .emacs file

[Denis Bueno]

Leonid Grinberg wrote:
uncomfortable. I use Emacs on many different machines (~5), and it
> would be nice to have a standard .emacs file.
[snip]
> Does anyone out there know (of a way to do it, or of another way)? I

I keep mine in a CVS repository (I keep all my config files in there) 
and symlink /path/to/cvs-repo/.emacs to ~/.emacs.

It has served me well for years now.

-Denis

Re: Remote .emacs file

[Anselm Helbig]

At Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:00:21 -0400,
"Leonid Grinberg" <lgrinberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I am a long-time Perl programmer, but unfortunately only know
> Emacs-Lisp on a theoretical level. However, I do use Emacs a lot, and
> have a relatively small, but still useful .emacs file. It has
> configurations in it, without which I am starting to feel
> uncomfortable. I use Emacs on many different machines (~5), and it
> would be nice to have a standard .emacs file.

maybe this works for you: put the following lines in all your .emacs
files, and put the rest on a web server:

  (defun my-eval-url-callback ()
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (re-search-forward "^\r?$" nil 1)
    (delete-region (point-min) (point))
    (eval-buffer))

  (url-retrieve "http://example.org/emacs.el" 'my-eval-url-callback)

i tested this only superficially. i, too, use version control (darcs)
for my .emacs. 

regards, 

anselm

Re: Remote .emacs file

[Kevin Rodgers]

Leonid Grinberg wrote:
> I am a long-time Perl programmer, but unfortunately only know
> Emacs-Lisp on a theoretical level. However, I do use Emacs a lot, and
> have a relatively small, but still useful .emacs file. It has
> configurations in it, without which I am starting to feel
> uncomfortable. I use Emacs on many different machines (~5), and it
> would be nice to have a standard .emacs file.
> 
> In Perl, I could easily put one on the web, and then have Perl
> download it and use eval() to load the functions in it. However, I do
> not know how to do this with Elisp.

So these computers do not share the same home directory?  Bummer.

Try this in each machine's ~/.emacs file:

(load "/@server:/path/to/your-dot-emacs" nil nil t)

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Sr. Software Engineer, IHS

Re: Remote .emacs file

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> "Leonid Grinberg" <lgrinberg@gmail.com>:

> Does anyone out there know (of a way to do it, or of another way)?

What I've done is to version control my home directory with CVS and
run a CVS server on my home cable modem machine.  One of the first
things I do on a new linux/unix machine, or cygwin installation, is to
check out my home directory and I'm up and running.

I even get version control of the files...:-)

(Note that even though the entire home directory has to be version
controlled, not all files in it has to be.  And they aren't in my
case.  I only actually version control all of the stuff that used to
take me the better part of a day to set up on a new machine)

Re: Remote .emacs file

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "SB" == Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

>>>>> "Leonid Grinberg" <lgrinberg@gmail.com>:

  >> Does anyone out there know (of a way to do it, or of another
  >> way)?

  SB> What I've done is to version control my home directory with CVS
  SB> and run a CVS server on my home cable modem machine.  One of the
  SB> first things I do on a new linux/unix machine, or cygwin
  SB> installation, is to check out my home directory and I'm up and
  SB> running.

  SB> I even get version control of the files...:-)

  SB> (Note that even though the entire home directory has to be
  SB> version controlled, not all files in it has to be.  And they
  SB> aren't in my case.  I only actually version control all of the
  SB> stuff that used to take me the better part of a day to set up on
  SB> a new machine)


I do a similar thing, but use unison which is a file synchroniser
rather than a version control. Works like a charm and has the
advantage over a remote .emacs that it works when the network is down!

Phil