Re: Remote .emacs

[Niels Giesen <niels.giesen@gmail.com>]

"Paulo J. Matos" <pocm@soton.ac.uk> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> I have several PCs I work regularly and where I regularly use emacs.
> Each time I update one .emacs, I have to update the others so that all
> are in sync.
>
> I wonder if there's already some code to:
> - Load a remote .emacs from the net.  If there's no remote access then
> use the previous cached one. Otherwise load the one from the net and
> cache it.
> - I don't know much about emacs lisp but if there are ways through
> emacs lisp to get files from http or ftp or something, it shouldn't be
> hard to implement this as a library required by local .emacs and ran
> each time the local .emacs is executed.
>

How about something like this:

(defvar *cached-init-file* "~/cached-init.el")
(defvar *remote-init-file* "http://your/remote/.emacs")

(defun load-remote ()
  "Load remote .emacs.

This assumes your .emacs file starts with at least three comment
characters (;;;) in order to skip the header returned by 
the function `url-retrieve-synchronously'."
  (let ((content
         (save-excursion
           (let ((buffer (condition-case nil (url-retrieve-synchronously
                                 *remote-init-file*)
                           (error nil))))
             (when buffer
               (set-buffer buffer)
               (re-search-forward "^;;" nil t)
               (buffer-substring-no-properties (point) (point-max)))))))
    (cond (content
           (eval content)
           (with-temp-file *cached-init-file*
             (erase-buffer)
             (insert content)
             (eval-buffer)))
          (t (load-file *cached-init-file*)))))

(load-remote)

Does lead me to wonder: how can we check for an internet connection without
actually making a (failing) request?

> Cheers,
>
> -- 
> Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
> http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
> PhD Student @ ECS
> University of Southampton, UK
> Sponsor ECS runners - Action against Hunger:
> http://www.justgiving.com/ecsrunslikethewind
>
>

-- 
http://niels.kicks-ass.org