Re: running multiple Emacs versions

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

nchubrich <nicholas.chubrich@gmail.com> writes:

> I would like to run both Aquamacs and a compiled version of Emacs 23,
> for different purposes.  Presumably they will need different
> configurations.  How can I do this, seeing as there is one .emacs
> file?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nick Chubrich.

Using one .emacs file is probably not going to be the big issue. Your
problem is likely to be byte code incompatibility, especially as emacs
23 moved to utf-8 encoding, which makes the *.elc files incompatible
with versions prior to 23. Emacs 23 can read older *.elc files, but it
does a translation/conversion process 'on the fly' which can
substantially slow down file loading etc.

There are ways around all of this, but take a bit of work. As an
example, you cold look at how Debian/Ubuntu handle running multiple
emacs versions at the same time. For your init file, look at initz (see
emacs wiki). I htink there is some other info on this in the wiki as
well. 

For your .emacs, you may be able to just get by using simple 'when'
blocks for the version specific stuff i.e.

(when (= emacs-major-version 23)
  ;; do 23 specific stuff
)

HTH

Tim

 


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tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au