From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: emacs fails to backup Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 16:49:41 +0200 (MEST) Sender: bug-gnu-emacs-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1021215063 20538 127.0.0.1 (12 May 2002 14:51:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:51:03 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 176ugg-0005L9-00 for ; Sun, 12 May 2002 16:51:02 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 176ugu-0001kg-00; Sun, 12 May 2002 10:51:16 -0400 Original-Received: from hera.cwi.nl ([192.16.191.8]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 176ufP-0001Xo-00 for ; Sun, 12 May 2002 10:49:43 -0400 Original-Received: from apps.cwi.nl (apps.cwi.nl [192.16.191.34]) by hera.cwi.nl with ESMTP id QAA08036 for ; Sun, 12 May 2002 16:49:41 +0200 (MEST) Original-Received: by apps.cwi.nl id g4CEnfI10196; Sun, 12 May 2002 16:49:41 +0200 (MEST) Original-To: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:1306 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.bugs:1306 Usually, emacs will save a backup of a file that was edited. There are good and bad sides to this, but that is what emacs does by default, and one comes to depend on it. Today I lost some time because emacs failed to make a backup. Normally my Linux trees are mounted on /linux, or /mnt or other directories. Today, on this computer, it was /tmp/linux. Edit a file, with the purpose of sending off the resulting diff after diff -u file~ file but there was no file~. Investigation of the info file shows that, indeed, if one is deep below /mnt then things are saved, but if one is deep below /tmp then things are not saved. Bad. Very bad context dependence. This means that the default version of emacs will make backup files when you don't need them, but that you cannot rely on getting the backup when you depend on it. The worst of all worlds. Andries