bug#41168: Add variable to limit save-interprogram-paste-before-kill by size

bug#41168: Add variable to limit save-interprogram-paste-before-kill by size

[ndame via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

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I like to set save-interprogram-paste-before-kill to t, so emacs does not clobber clipboard data without saving it.

However, sometimes I have large data on the clipboard which I don't want to end up in emacs as the manual also warns:

Optionally, you can change
‘save-interprogram-paste-before-kill’ to ‘t’.  Then Emacs will first
save the clipboard to its kill ring, preventing you from losing the old
clipboard data—at the risk of high memory consumption if that data turns
out to be large.

How about a variable which allows the user to limit the size of data saved on the kill ring? Data larger than the limit is not copied.

save-interprogram-paste-before-kill  itself could specify this limit. If it's not t but a number then it's the limit as number of bytes or maybe kilobytes, because I imagine the user sets such a limit to at least a few hundred kilobytes or higher.

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bug#41168: Add variable to limit save-interprogram-paste-before-kill by size

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 10 May 2020 08:56:40 +0000
> From: ndame via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> How about a variable which allows the user to limit the size of data saved on the kill ring? Data larger than
> the limit is not copied.
> 
> save-interprogram-paste-before-kill  itself could specify this limit. If it's not t but a number then it's the limit as
> number of bytes or maybe kilobytes, because I imagine the user sets such a limit to at least a few hundred
> kilobytes or higher.

Sounds like a good idea.  Would you like to propose a patch along
these lines?

bug#41168: Add variable to limit save-interprogram-paste-before-kill by size

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

ndame <ndame@protonmail.com> writes:

> How about a variable which allows the user to limit the size of data saved on the kill
> ring? Data larger than the limit is not copied.
>
> save-interprogram-paste-before-kill  itself could specify this limit. If it's not t but a
> number then it's the limit as number of bytes or maybe kilobytes, because I imagine
> the user sets such a limit to at least a few hundred kilobytes or higher.

This is now implemented in Emacs 28.  (And the limit is in characters.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no