How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Tom Wallenfang]

Hello dear emacs folk,
I have been seeing lately that the autosave feature is activated again
although I deactivated it :/

Here is a cut from my .emacs file:

> (custom-set-variables
> '(auto-save-default nil)
> '(auto-save-interval 0)
> '(auto-save-timeout 0)
> '(auto-save-visited-interval 0))
Does anyone here know what I have to do so I don't have to remove those
files everytime I quit editing

(yes, I do know the consequences that can come with disabling autosave,
and I am taking the full responsibility for what might/is going to
happen.)

Thanks in Regards
Tom

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Martin Šlouf]

Hello,

I have been also irritated by the various 'spam' within my projects, but
than I have found this setting (keeps all the backups in single directory):

(custom-set-variables
  '(backup-directory-alist (quote (("." . "~/.emacs.d/backup-directory")))))

so I can keep my file system clean and still have the backups. I can
_recommend_ it.

Kind Regards,
Martin

P.S.

Documentation:
Alist of filename patterns and backup directory names.
Each element looks like (REGEXP . DIRECTORY).  Backups of files with
names matching REGEXP will be made in DIRECTORY.

Tom Wallenfang <tom@wallenfang.de> writes:

> Hello dear emacs folk,
> I have been seeing lately that the autosave feature is activated again
> although I deactivated it :/
>
> Here is a cut from my .emacs file:
>
>> (custom-set-variables
>> '(auto-save-default nil)
>> '(auto-save-interval 0)
>> '(auto-save-timeout 0)
>> '(auto-save-visited-interval 0))
> Does anyone here know what I have to do so I don't have to remove those
> files everytime I quit editing
>
> (yes, I do know the consequences that can come with disabling autosave,
> and I am taking the full responsibility for what might/is going to
> happen.)
>
> Thanks in Regards
> Tom

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Stefan Monnier]

> I have been seeing lately that the autosave feature is activated again
> although I deactivated it :/

Could you describe exactly what you "have been seeing" that made you
conclude that "the autosave feature is activated again"?
It's common for Emacs users to confuse auto-saves and backups, for example.


        Stefan

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Tom Wallenfang]

> Could you describe exactly what you "have been seeing" that made you
> conclude that "the autosave feature is activated again"?
When I edited the Makefile, saved and looked at the filesystem, there
was Makefile~ which I don't want.
-- 
It works on my machine...

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[tomas]

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On Wed, Oct 03, 2018 at 04:16:37PM +0200, Tom Wallenfang wrote:
> > Could you describe exactly what you "have been seeing" that made you
> > conclude that "the autosave feature is activated again"?
> When I edited the Makefile, saved and looked at the filesystem, there
> was Makefile~ which I don't want.

Seems Stefan's crystal ball is working perfectly (as almost always).

The files with the tilde at the end are (typically) backup files. They
are supposed to survive the session and give you a "previous state" to
fall back to should your session do a catastrophic thing.

The "auto save" file name would rather look like ".#Makefile", and the
file strives to contain the most current buffer status. In case of a
(Emacs or system) crash, you can thus recover the most recent edits.

Note that this file is supposed to be ephemeral: if all ends well, you
won't see it.

So it seems you want to configure backup, described in info node
"Backup Files".

If your concern is file system clutter, better leave auto-save alone.
It's not going to clutter your file system (unless something else is
going horribly wrong). As for backup, you can disable it or even teach
it to use one directory for all backups (I have typically something
beneath my ~/.emacs.d).

Cheers
-- tomás

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Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Skip Montanaro]

> If your concern is file system clutter, better leave auto-save alone.
> It's not going to clutter your file system (unless something else is
> going horribly wrong). As for backup, you can disable it or even teach
> it to use one directory for all backups (I have typically something
> beneath my ~/.emacs.d).

Coming a bit late to the game... Adding to Tomás's point, if you want
to eliminate backup files, don't just disable it. Replace it with a
proper version control system of some sort. Think of backup files (I
generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
foot. A version control system does that, only better. Tools like Git
or Mercurial make it trivial to create and manage little repositories
("git init" creates a new repo in the current directory, for example).
You need not push changes to a central server if you don't care to.
The elements in the filesystem which support the repository will
generally be invisible to the casual glance (hiding as directories
with leading dots on Unix-type systems). Most are well-integrated with
Emacs, so you can manage commits and other activities directly from
within Emacs (I use the vc package). Furthermore, once Emacs knows a
version control system has your back, it stops saving those
(pesky-to-you) backup files.

I apologize if this is all old hat. I wanted to make sure you
understood that backup files serve a valuable purpose (as do their big
brethren, version control systems). I suspect most folks reading this
mailing list have been thankful for this feature on more than one
occasion.

Skip

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Van L]

> Think of backup files (I
> generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
> copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
> foot. A version control system does that, only better. Tools like Git
> or Mercurial make it trivial to create and manage little repositories
> ("git init" creates a new repo in the current directory, for example).
> You need not push changes to a central server if you don't care to.

A complete beginner might want to try fossil.

It has builtin wiki, ticket tracking, and web-frontend.

http://www.fossil-scm.org/

Fossil [Was: Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1]

[Garreau, Alexandre]

On 2018-10-05 at 00:47, Van L wrote:
>> Think of backup files (I
>> generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
>> copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
>> foot. A version control system does that, only better. Tools like Git
>> or Mercurial make it trivial to create and manage little repositories
>> ("git init" creates a new repo in the current directory, for example).
>> You need not push changes to a central server if you don't care to.
>
> A complete beginner might want to try fossil.

Isn’t fossil (also?) Plan9’s versioned immutable file system?

> It has builtin wiki, ticket tracking, and web-frontend.

isn’t that even more cluttered if you don’t need that but only backups?

Re: Fossil [Was: Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1]

[Van L]

>> A complete beginner might want to try fossil.
> 
> Isn’t fossil (also?) Plan9’s versioned immutable file system?

Without looking into it, I don’t know. The identical name may 
at rockbottom refer to a totally different thing. The concept
is the same, I suppose.

>> It has builtin wiki, ticket tracking, and web-frontend.
> 
> isn’t that even more cluttered if you don’t need that but only backups?

That depends how one approaches their mental model.
One way of seeing that is in three perspectives on 
the one thing, which is undifferentiated and if it 
is cluttered in detail like an unmanaged desktop that 
will need to be changed by a will to be different and
to self-improve.

Re: Fossil [Was: Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1]

[tomas]

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On Sat, Oct 06, 2018 at 01:34:17PM +0200, Garreau, Alexandre wrote:

[...]

> Isn’t fossil (also?) Plan9’s versioned immutable file system?

I don't think so. I think this was meant:

  https://fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_(software)

It's the VC & bug tracker used by the Tcl folks (by D. Richard Hipp, of
SQLie fame), I think.

Cheers
-- t

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Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-10-04, at 14:55, Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If your concern is file system clutter, better leave auto-save alone.
>> It's not going to clutter your file system (unless something else is
>> going horribly wrong). As for backup, you can disable it or even teach
>> it to use one directory for all backups (I have typically something
>> beneath my ~/.emacs.d).
>
> Coming a bit late to the game... Adding to Tomás's point, if you want
> to eliminate backup files, don't just disable it. Replace it with a
> proper version control system of some sort. Think of backup files (I
> generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
> copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
> foot. A version control system does that, only better. [...]

That is a very sound advice.  I'd like to point out, however, that the
backup files (even the numbered ones) actually do have their place even
in the presence of VCSs.  (Coincidentally, I have a blog post ready for
publishing about exactly this issue, and I plan to post it online on
Saturday.)  My use-case is a .env file, containing sensitive data (like
passwords) the application I'm working on needs.  It must not be
committed to a Git repo, but being able to look at one (or more)
previous versions (as in, "what was the last version that wan't somehow
broken") is sometimes quite valuable.

Just my 2 cents,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-10-04, at 19:21, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:

> On 2018-10-04, at 14:55, Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> If your concern is file system clutter, better leave auto-save alone.
>>> It's not going to clutter your file system (unless something else is
>>> going horribly wrong). As for backup, you can disable it or even teach
>>> it to use one directory for all backups (I have typically something
>>> beneath my ~/.emacs.d).
>>
>> Coming a bit late to the game... Adding to Tomás's point, if you want
>> to eliminate backup files, don't just disable it. Replace it with a
>> proper version control system of some sort. Think of backup files (I
>> generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
>> copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
>> foot. A version control system does that, only better. [...]
>
> That is a very sound advice.  I'd like to point out, however, that the
> backup files (even the numbered ones) actually do have their place even
> in the presence of VCSs.  (Coincidentally, I have a blog post ready for
> publishing about exactly this issue, and I plan to post it online on
> Saturday.)  My use-case is a .env file, containing sensitive data (like
> passwords) the application I'm working on needs.  It must not be
> committed to a Git repo, but being able to look at one (or more)
> previous versions (as in, "what was the last version that wan't somehow
> broken") is sometimes quite valuable.

Just in case someone was interested, here's my blog post about Emacs and
backup copies of files it saves:
http://mbork.pl/2018-10-06_The_version-control_variable

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[James K. Lowden]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 07:55:45 -0500
Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> wrote:

> Think of backup files (I generally use numeric backups to actually
> retain more than one old copy - more clutter!) as a defense against
> shooting yourself in the foot. A version control system does that,
> only better. Tools like Git or Mercurial make it trivial to create
> and manage little repositories ("git init" creates a new repo in the
> current directory, for example).

Yeah, no.  The operative word is "manage".  Backups happen
automatically; version control happens intentionally.  Who wants to
execute "add" and "commit" all day long, just in case?  

Most files don't need or want management.  The very last thing you need
is a copy of your .profile from 1992, but it well might be handy to
have .profile~ when .profile gets overwritten by mistake.  

There are better answers, although of course Unix is immune to them.
VMS had automatic, numbered backups for all files.  How many was
controlled by properties on the directory by default, or explicitly of
the file. The command-line shell syntax supported acting on "the
file" (the latest version) by default, or on all versions.  I never
remember anyone complaining the system was too complicated or hard to
understand.  

--jkl

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Stefan Monnier]

> The files with the tilde at the end are (typically) backup files.

Indeed.

> They are supposed to survive the session and give you a "previous
> state" to fall back to should your session do a catastrophic thing.

No, they're not meant to handle crashes but rather pilot errors
(they're supposed to hold the state of the file before the last time you
edited it with Emacs).

> The "auto save" file name would rather look like ".#Makefile", and the

No, the .#foo "files" are the symlinks used as "lock files" to indicate
that the file is being edited by an Emacs session (can be disabled by
setting `create-lockfiles`).

The autosave files have names of the form #foo#


        Stefan

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[tomas]

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On Thu, Oct 04, 2018 at 09:10:27AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > The files with the tilde at the end are (typically) backup files.
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> > They are supposed to survive the session and give you a "previous
> > state" to fall back to should your session do a catastrophic thing.
> 
> No, they're not meant to handle crashes but rather pilot errors

Correct. Actually that was what I was trying to say (but didn't manage).
You delete (by mistake) the whole thing. Then save. Oops. That kind of
stuff.

> > The "auto save" file name would rather look like ".#Makefile", and the
> 
> No, the .#foo "files" are the symlinks used as "lock files" to indicate
> that the file is being edited by an Emacs session (can be disabled by
> setting `create-lockfiles`).
> 
> The autosave files have names of the form #foo#

Oh. Thanks for the clarification...

Cheers
-- t

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Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Tom Wallenfang]

Thanks for that response!
Now I know why it didn't work when I searched for ways to disable
autosave.
The solution Martin Šlouf gave me works great, it's what I've been
searching for so long.
Regards
Tom
-- 
It works on my machine...

Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Tom Wallenfang]

Thanks a lot!
-- 
It works on my machine...