Creating automatic filename stamps

["Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@gmail.com>]

Some years ago---in the early 90s---I was working on a project with a
number of files, moving files around and renaming.  I was able to cobble
together an elisp function to duplicate and extend the time-stamp
functionality, to good effect, to help me keep track of the sources of
changes.

   - Time-stamp the flle
   - Duplicate the previous time-stamp on the next line, (possibly in a
list)
   - "File-stamp": record the current file name
   -  Add the previous filename on the previous line, possibly as the head
of a list of all previous names for this file.

I need this functionality all the time, but I have lost the old
implementation.  It must have been simple, because I knew almost no elisp
at all.  But I believe I stole the "Time-stamp:" code, and modified it.

For years I have tried to locate another implementation.  It seems so
pivotal, to me, that I imagine others have implemented it, probably better
than I had.

I have given it a try, but have not even gotten close.  I would be grateful
for any suggestions how to go about implementing this functionality.

Alan Davis

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