One thing that really bugs me about Emacs is the way it clutters up my directories with backup files (filenames ending in ~) and autosave files (filenames starting with #). Fortunately there's an easy way to move them elsewhere. Unfortunately the technique isn't consistent across Emacs versions. In GNU Emacs 21, you can set backup-directory-alist and auto-save-file-name-transforms. In XEmacs 21, you can set bkup-backup-directory-info and auto-save-directory. Here's what I do in GNU Emacs:
(defvar user-temporary-file-directory (concat temporary-file-directory user-login-name "/")) (make-directory user-temporary-file-directory t) (setq backup-by-copying t) (setq backup-directory-alist `(("." . ,user-temporary-file-directory) (,tramp-file-name-regexp nil))) (setq auto-save-list-file-prefix (concat user-temporary-file-directory ".auto-saves-")) (setq auto-save-file-name-transforms `((".*" ,user-temporary-file-directory t)))
Here's what I do in XEmacs:
(require 'auto-save) (require 'backup-dir) (defvar user-temporary-file-directory (concat (temp-directory) "/" (user-login-name))) (make-directory user-temporary-file-directory t) (setq backup-by-copying t) (setq auto-save-directory user-temporary-file-directory) (setq auto-save-list-file-prefix (concat user-temporary-file-directory ".auto-saves-")) (setq bkup-backup-directory-info `((t ,user-temporary-file-directory full-path)))
I'm much happier with Emacs temporary files being kept out of my way.
Labels: emacs
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Just what I wanted - many thanks
Thanks for your help, that worked in version gnu 22.2.1.
I've wanted to fix that forever, but I'm no emacs expert. Thanks for posting it!
Thanks a lot!
Before I lost my .emacs, I had a version which adds the current date/time to the filename.
Do u have any idea how I can do this?
Max
Max: sorry, I don't know how to add the date/time. I just let the OS record the date/time and use that.
Those backup files have saved my butt on more than one occasion and I don't find "rm *~" that much of a chore. Thanks fore exposing the settings, though!
Be advised that for Debian-based systems (including ubuntu), the default is to clean out /tmp on every boot; so storing your autosave backup files there might not be a good idea. (Autosave especially, as you normally need them exactly when you've rebooted unexpectedly!) So users of those systems may want to set user-temporary-file-directory to something more permanent, thus:
(defvar user-temporary-file-directory
"~/.emacs-backup")
Thanks!
Thanks! I was using the function "make-backup-file-name" for my backup, but for some unknow reasons this function doesn't work anymore on my new computer.