bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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When I try to kill an emacs server from the command line by:
   emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
nothing appears to happen if there are any unsaved buffers.

I presume that this is because the prompt goes to the usual place (below
the mode line in the screen), which of course isn't visible from the
command line because there isn't any screen when using "emacsclient -e".

This is a follow-up to bug 55560, where it was suggested that kill-emacs is
inappropriate and instead I should use save-buffers-kill-emacs.

Probably not relevant, but including for completeness:

I have the following "my-exit" function added to
kill-emacs-query-functions; I've confirmed that this use of daemonp behaves
as expected and that the "Really kill Emacs?" prompt doesn't happen:

(defun my-exit ()
  (or (daemonp)
      (yes-or-no-p "Really kill Emacs? ")))


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll
bars)
 of 2022-05-21 built on penguin
Repository revision: 208102fa470e3417320062cdb48a9967d80bf092
Repository branch: master
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)

Configured using:
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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Michael Albinus]

Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Peter,

> When I try to kill an emacs server from the command line by:
>    emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> nothing appears to happen if there are any unsaved buffers.
>
> I presume that this is because the prompt goes to the usual place (below
> the mode line in the screen), which of course isn't visible from the
> command line because there isn't any screen when using "emacsclient -e".
>
> This is a follow-up to bug 55560, where it was suggested that kill-emacs is
> inappropriate and instead I should use save-buffers-kill-emacs.

There is an optional ARG which lets Emacs silently save all file-visiting
buffers without asking. So you must call

  emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs t)'

Best regards, Michael.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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I don't want to unconditionally save buffers; I want to conditionally save
them. (Actually, I wouldn't mind if it didn't save the buffers at all; when
I restart emacs, it finds the ".#" files, and that suffices.)

There's a more general problem here (although you might decide it's too
much trouble to fix) -- it seems that when "emacsclient -e" is used, any
prompts go to the non-existent screen rather than to the terminal. (e.g.,
yes-or-n-p's prompt).

Also, save-buffers-kill-emacs does two things: (conditionally) saves the
buffers and deletes the ~/.emacs.d/.emacs.desktop.lock file. On the other
hand, the lower level kill-emacs doesn't delete the lock file (and the
response to bug 55560 is that that's a deliberate design decision). So,
there's no way of doing from the command line
"kill-emacs-and-remove-lock-file", it seems.

On Tue, 24 May 2022 at 00:34, Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>
wrote:

> Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com> writes:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> > When I try to kill an emacs server from the command line by:
> >    emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> > nothing appears to happen if there are any unsaved buffers.
> >
> > I presume that this is because the prompt goes to the usual place (below
> > the mode line in the screen), which of course isn't visible from the
> > command line because there isn't any screen when using "emacsclient -e".
> >
> > This is a follow-up to bug 55560, where it was suggested that kill-emacs
> is
> > inappropriate and instead I should use save-buffers-kill-emacs.
>
> There is an optional ARG which lets Emacs silently save all file-visiting
> buffers without asking. So you must call
>
>   emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs t)'
>
> Best regards, Michael.
>

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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 24 May 2022 02:29:37 -0700
> 
> I don't want to unconditionally save buffers; I want to conditionally save them. (Actually, I wouldn't mind if it
> didn't save the buffers at all; when I restart emacs, it finds the ".#" files, and that suffices.)
> 
> There's a more general problem here (although you might decide it's too much trouble to fix) -- it seems that
> when "emacsclient -e" is used, any prompts go to the non-existent screen rather than to the terminal. (e.g.,
> yes-or-n-p's prompt).

"emacsclient -e" is not meant to support execution of interactive Lisp
programs, especially not when there's no client frame through which to
interact with the user.  If you want interaction via emacsclient,
start emacsclient normally, and then invoke those interactive Lisp
programs in the client frame that the server opens.

I see no bugs in the behavior you report, and no change from previous
Emacs versions.  So I'm unsure what issues are being discussed here
(but see below).

> Also, save-buffers-kill-emacs does two things: (conditionally) saves the buffers and deletes the
> ~/.emacs.d/.emacs.desktop.lock file. On the other hand, the lower level kill-emacs doesn't delete the lock file
> (and the response to bug 55560 is that that's a deliberate design decision). So, there's no way of doing from
> the command line "kill-emacs-and-remove-lock-file", it seems.

You can do anything from the command line, as long as you make sure
the Lisp program you invoke via the -e switch doesn't ask any
questions.  E.g., you can invoke a Lisp program that deletes the
desktop lock file in a kill-emacs-hook, provided that you write such a
hook yourself and set it in the same Lisp program you pass via -e.

The change that triggered this bug report supports "normal" use of
emacsclient, whereby the server session is terminated interactively.
If you insist on doing that noninteractively, you will have to write
your own Lisp program to do that.  Alternatively, feel free to request
a new feature of emacsclient whereby you could terminate the server
session non-interactively via some new command-line option; then the
implementation of such a feature will have to do all that internally.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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It seems that there is a way to get an interactive message to the terminal
in batch mode ...

    During daemon startup (with an existing .emacs.desktop file), I get
this on my terminal:

        bunzip2ing contrib-protobufs-2021-06-07-15-56.tbz2...
        bunzip2ing contrib-protobufs-2021-06-07-15-56.tbz2...done
        Parsing tar file...
        Parsing tar file...done
        Please type y, n, ! or i, or C-v/M-v to scroll:

This seems to be from make-progress-reporter, which (if I read the code
correctly) ends up calling (message "%s %s %s" text pulse-char suffix)).
And that message displays interactively on the terminal.

So, there is a way to have the messages from emacsclient --eval display on
the terminal, but in some (most?) situations they don't. (The definition
for message says: "In batch mode, the message is printed to the standard
error stream, followed by a newline.") So, I infer that yes-or-no-p should
just use "message" and all will be fine. (Another example of a prompt that
should go to the terminal but doesn't: "Active processes exist; kill them
and exit anyway" should use "message".)

As to your suggested feature request: I'm not requesting termination of the
server non-interactively - I'm just saying that when the shutdown command
comes from the command line, the messages be output to the terminal, the
way "message" does and not the way yes-or-no-p does.

On Tue, 24 May 2022 at 04:31, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > Cc: 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> > From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> > Date: Tue, 24 May 2022 02:29:37 -0700
> >
> > I don't want to unconditionally save buffers; I want to conditionally
> save them. (Actually, I wouldn't mind if it
> > didn't save the buffers at all; when I restart emacs, it finds the ".#"
> files, and that suffices.)
> >
> > There's a more general problem here (although you might decide it's too
> much trouble to fix) -- it seems that
> > when "emacsclient -e" is used, any prompts go to the non-existent screen
> rather than to the terminal. (e.g.,
> > yes-or-n-p's prompt).
>
> "emacsclient -e" is not meant to support execution of interactive Lisp
> programs, especially not when there's no client frame through which to
> interact with the user.  If you want interaction via emacsclient,
> start emacsclient normally, and then invoke those interactive Lisp
> programs in the client frame that the server opens.
>
> I see no bugs in the behavior you report, and no change from previous
> Emacs versions.  So I'm unsure what issues are being discussed here
> (but see below).
>
> > Also, save-buffers-kill-emacs does two things: (conditionally) saves the
> buffers and deletes the
> > ~/.emacs.d/.emacs.desktop.lock file. On the other hand, the lower level
> kill-emacs doesn't delete the lock file
> > (and the response to bug 55560 is that that's a deliberate design
> decision). So, there's no way of doing from
> > the command line "kill-emacs-and-remove-lock-file", it seems.
>
> You can do anything from the command line, as long as you make sure
> the Lisp program you invoke via the -e switch doesn't ask any
> questions.  E.g., you can invoke a Lisp program that deletes the
> desktop lock file in a kill-emacs-hook, provided that you write such a
> hook yourself and set it in the same Lisp program you pass via -e.
>
> The change that triggered this bug report supports "normal" use of
> emacsclient, whereby the server session is terminated interactively.
> If you insist on doing that noninteractively, you will have to write
> your own Lisp program to do that.  Alternatively, feel free to request
> a new feature of emacsclient whereby you could terminate the server
> session non-interactively via some new command-line option; then the
> implementation of such a feature will have to do all that internally.
>

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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 28 May 2022 11:27:22 -0700
> Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> It seems that there is a way to get an interactive message to the terminal in batch mode ...
> 
>     During daemon startup (with an existing .emacs.desktop file), I get this on my terminal:
> 
>         bunzip2ing contrib-protobufs-2021-06-07-15-56.tbz2... 
>         bunzip2ing contrib-protobufs-2021-06-07-15-56.tbz2...done
>         Parsing tar file... 
>         Parsing tar file...done
>         Please type y, n, ! or i, or C-v/M-v to scroll: 
> 
> This seems to be from make-progress-reporter, which (if I read the code correctly) ends up calling
> (message "%s %s %s" text pulse-char suffix)). And that message displays interactively on the terminal.

During startup of the daemon, it can still have its original standard
output/error streams (and even that is not guaranteed if it is not
invoked from the shell prompt), but once it starts, the standard
output/error streams are closed b y the system and are no longer
available, AFAIK.

> So, there is a way to have the messages from emacsclient --eval display on the terminal, but in some
> (most?) situations they don't. (The definition for message says: "In batch mode, the message is printed to
> the standard error stream, followed by a newline.") So, I infer that yes-or-no-p should just use "message"
> and all will be fine.

yes-or-no-p needs to ask a question and get the response.

> As to your suggested feature request: I'm not requesting termination of the server non-interactively - I'm just
> saying that when the shutdown command comes from the command line, the messages be output to the
> terminal, the way "message" does and not the way yes-or-no-p does.

The terminal is still taken by the client frame it displays.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: michael.albinus@gmx.de, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 28 May 2022 22:25:53 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
> > As to your suggested feature request: I'm not requesting termination of the server non-interactively - I'm just
> > saying that when the shutdown command comes from the command line, the messages be output to the
> > terminal, the way "message" does and not the way yes-or-no-p does.
> 
> The terminal is still taken by the client frame it displays.

Sorry, that was incorrect, because I was confused about the situation
to which you were alluding.

The correct response is: when a daemon Emacs doesn't show any frames,
it has no way of communicating with the user, because the standard
streams are no longer available, AFAIK.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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There's probably a solution to this, but it could be a lot of work for a
small benefit.

If emacsclient --eval could pass in the stdin/stdout/stderr from the
terminal to the daemon, then things would work as I expect. But the
work-around is easy: emacsclient -c -e '...'

However, I noticed that stderr appears to be available, when there's an
error:

$ emacsclient --eval '(man fprintf)'
*ERROR*: Symbol’s value as variable is void: fprintf

and also when it works properly:

$ emacsclient --eval "(list-buffers)"
#<window 194 on *Buffer List*>




On Sat, 28 May 2022 at 12:39, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > Cc: michael.albinus@gmx.de, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> > Date: Sat, 28 May 2022 22:25:53 +0300
> > From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> >
> > > As to your suggested feature request: I'm not requesting termination
> of the server non-interactively - I'm just
> > > saying that when the shutdown command comes from the command line, the
> messages be output to the
> > > terminal, the way "message" does and not the way yes-or-no-p does.
> >
> > The terminal is still taken by the client frame it displays.
>
> Sorry, that was incorrect, because I was confused about the situation
> to which you were alluding.
>
> The correct response is: when a daemon Emacs doesn't show any frames,
> it has no way of communicating with the user, because the standard
> streams are no longer available, AFAIK.
>

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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 31 May 2022 12:34:23 -0700
> Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> There's probably a solution to this, but it could be a lot of work for a small benefit.

Could you please describe the problem for which you are looking for a
solution?  During this discussion, you presented several issues that
bothered you, so I'm no longer sure which of those we are now talking
about.

> However, I noticed that stderr appears to be available, when there's an error:
> 
> $ emacsclient --eval '(man fprintf)'
> *ERROR*: Symbol’s value as variable is void: fprintf
> 
> and also when it works properly:
> 
> $ emacsclient --eval "(list-buffers)"
> #<window 194 on *Buffer List*>

That's emacsclient's stderr, not that of the daemon.  And it can only
print messages, not receive input.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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As Eli requested, restating what I'm asking ...

I start the emacs daemon from a terminal by:
    emacs --daemon

During startup, there might be some prompts (e.g., I get a
pagination prompt from parsing a tar file, when emacs is loading my last
session's files), and I can deal with them at the terminal.

When I shutdown the emacs daemon, I would like to also do this at the
terminal:
    emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
but that doesn't work if there are any prompts (e.g., saving a file or
killing a shell process).
A work-around is to do:
    emacsclient -c -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
and that lets me see the prompts in the minibuffer.

However, it seems that "emacsclient -e" has access to the terminal's stderr.
Evidence: I get an error message at the terminal (not in a minibuffer) if I
do something with an error, such as
    emacsclient -e '(man fprintf)'

If stderr is being passed in to the evaluation code in daemon mode, then it
would be nice to also have stdin passed in, which would allow interaction
at the terminal.

However, this is a fairly minor improvement, given that "emacsclient -c -e"
works as expected, so probably it's not worth spending time on. (And the
documentation/emacswiki could be improved so that other people like me
don't bother you.)


On Tue, 31 May 2022 at 19:30, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> > Date: Tue, 31 May 2022 12:34:23 -0700
> > Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > There's probably a solution to this, but it could be a lot of work for a
> small benefit.
>
> Could you please describe the problem for which you are looking for a
> solution?  During this discussion, you presented several issues that
> bothered you, so I'm no longer sure which of those we are now talking
> about.
>
> > However, I noticed that stderr appears to be available, when there's an
> error:
> >
> > $ emacsclient --eval '(man fprintf)'
> > *ERROR*: Symbol’s value as variable is void: fprintf
> >
> > and also when it works properly:
> >
> > $ emacsclient --eval "(list-buffers)"
> > #<window 194 on *Buffer List*>
>
> That's emacsclient's stderr, not that of the daemon.  And it can only
> print messages, not receive input.
>

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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2022 10:54:02 -0700
> Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> I start the emacs daemon from a terminal by:
>     emacs --daemon
> 
> During startup, there might be some prompts (e.g., I get a pagination prompt from parsing a tar file, when
> emacs is loading my last session's files), and I can deal with them at the terminal.
> 
> When I shutdown the emacs daemon, I would like to also do this at the terminal:
>     emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> but that doesn't work if there are any prompts (e.g., saving a file or killing a shell process).
> A work-around is to do:
>     emacsclient -c -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> and that lets me see the prompts in the minibuffer.
> 
> However, it seems that "emacsclient -e" has access to the terminal's stderr.
> Evidence: I get an error message at the terminal (not in a minibuffer) if I do something with an error, such as
>     emacsclient -e '(man fprintf)'
> 
> If stderr is being passed in to the evaluation code in daemon mode, then it would be nice to also have stdin
> passed in, which would allow interaction at the terminal.

stderr is not passed.  What happens is that any messages sent by the
server are echoed by the client on its own stderr.

However, the reverse direction is not supported.  For it to be
supported, we need a way to tell the server to wait for the client to
return the user's response.  Such a feature doesn't exist, AFAIK, so
to support it we need to extend the client-server protocol.

bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Peter Ludemann]

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On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 at 12:52, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > From: Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com>
> > Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2022 10:54:02 -0700
> > Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>, 55599@debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > I start the emacs daemon from a terminal by:
> >     emacs --daemon
> >
> > During startup, there might be some prompts (e.g., I get a pagination
> prompt from parsing a tar file, when
> > emacs is loading my last session's files), and I can deal with them at
> the terminal.
> >
> > When I shutdown the emacs daemon, I would like to also do this at the
> terminal:
> >     emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> > but that doesn't work if there are any prompts (e.g., saving a file or
> killing a shell process).
> > A work-around is to do:
> >     emacsclient -c -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'
> > and that lets me see the prompts in the minibuffer.
> >
> > However, it seems that "emacsclient -e" has access to the terminal's
> stderr.
> > Evidence: I get an error message at the terminal (not in a minibuffer)
> if I do something with an error, such as
> >     emacsclient -e '(man fprintf)'
> >
> > If stderr is being passed in to the evaluation code in daemon mode, then
> it would be nice to also have stdin
> > passed in, which would allow interaction at the terminal.
>
> stderr is not passed.  What happens is that any messages sent by the
> server are echoed by the client on its own stderr.
>
> However, the reverse direction is not supported.  For it to be
> supported, we need a way to tell the server to wait for the client to
> return the user's response.  Such a feature doesn't exist, AFAIK, so
> to support it we need to extend the client-server protocol.
>

That sounds like a lot of work for a very small pay-off (at least, in the
scenario I've given), especially as there's an easy work-around.
Feel free to close this bug/feature-request as "wontfix". ;)

And, again, thank-you for your prompt and very helpful responses (and your
patience with someone who knows very little about the internals of emacs)

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bug#55599: save-buffers-kill-emacs doesn't give a visible prompt when called from command line

[Stefan Kangas]

tags 55599 + wontfix
close 55599
thanks

Peter Ludemann <peter.ludemann@gmail.com> writes:

> Feel free to close this bug/feature-request as "wontfix". ;)

Done.  Thanks for the bug report.