GNU bug report logs - #38875
26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when auto-save-default is nil

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when auto-save-default
 is nil
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 19:26:15 +0100

auto-save-list-file-name is still created in the file system when
auto-save-default is nil. This behaviour is a bit annoying since Emacs
will always create a lingering file that will end up not using.

My configuration is as follows:

;; disable auto save
(setq auto-save-default nil
      auto-save-list-file-name (concat +backups-dir+ (format
".auto-save-%s" (emacs-pid))))

If the user wants to disable auto save then nothing should be created in
the file system. What's the point in Emacs maintaining this file in this
situation?

In GNU Emacs 26.2 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32)
 of 2019-04-13 built on CIRROCUMULUS
Repository revision: fd1b34bfba8f3f6298df47c8e10b61530426f749
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.18363
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Message #8 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2;
 auto-save-list-file-name still created when auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 20:55:44 +0200

> From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 19:26:15 +0100
> 
> auto-save-list-file-name is still created in the file system when
> auto-save-default is nil. This behaviour is a bit annoying since Emacs
> will always create a lingering file that will end up not using.
> 
> My configuration is as follows:
> 
> ;; disable auto save
> (setq auto-save-default nil
>       auto-save-list-file-name (concat +backups-dir+ (format
> ".auto-save-%s" (emacs-pid))))

I seem to be unable to reproduce this.  You are saying that just
starting Emacs with the above settings causes the
auto-save-list-file-name to appear in the file system?  It doesn't
seem to happen here.

In any case, you supposed to customize auto-save-list-file-prefix, not
auto-save-list-file-name directly.  Setting auto-save-list-file-prefix
to nil will prevent Emacs from initializing auto-save-list-file-name.

Thanks.

Message #11 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:08:55 +0100

> I seem to be unable to reproduce this.  You are saying that just
> starting Emacs with the above settings causes the
> auto-save-list-file-name to appear in the file system?  It doesn't
> seem to happen here.

Just starting Emacs and waiting auto-save-timeout will create the
file. Setting auto-save-list-file-prefix to nil does make the file not
be created. I was setting auto-save-list-file-name to a directory
where it doesn't get in the way. Thanks!

Message #14 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 21:19:45 +0200

> From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:08:55 +0100
> Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Setting auto-save-list-file-prefix to nil does make the file not
> be created. I was setting auto-save-list-file-name to a directory
> where it doesn't get in the way. Thanks!

Does this means we can close this bug report?

Message #17 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:26:42 +0100

On Thu, 2 Jan 2020 at 20:19, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> > Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:08:55 +0100
> > Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > Setting auto-save-list-file-prefix to nil does make the file not
> > be created. I was setting auto-save-list-file-name to a directory
> > where it doesn't get in the way. Thanks!
>
> Does this means we can close this bug report?

For me yes. I still find a bit confusing that setting
auto-save-default to nil isn't enough to disable this but there's
probably something else going on that I am unaware of.

Message #22 received at 38875-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38875-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 22:00:08 +0200

> From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:26:42 +0100
> Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > Does this means we can close this bug report?
> 
> For me yes.

Done.

> I still find a bit confusing that setting
> auto-save-default to nil isn't enough to disable this

Like I said: it does disable creating the file for me.

Message #25 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 21:16:26 +0100

> Like I said: it does disable creating the file for me.

Try `emacs -q -l test.el` with test.el:

(setq auto-save-default nil)

wait a bit and `~/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/.saves-<pid>-<hostname>~`
will be created.

Tried on
GNU Emacs 26.2 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2019-04-13
and
GNU Emacs 27.0.60 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2019-12-28

Message #28 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 22:24:57 +0200

> From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 21:16:26 +0100
> Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > Like I said: it does disable creating the file for me.
> 
> Try `emacs -q -l test.el` with test.el:
> 
> (setq auto-save-default nil)
> 
> wait a bit and `~/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/.saves-<pid>-<hostname>~`
> will be created.

That's exactly what I did, except that these settings were in ~/.emacs
and not loaded after startup.  I waited for 30 seconds, and didn't see
any auto-save-list file in ~/.emacs.d/.  Not sure why it happens for
you.

Message #31 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 22:09:59 +0100

> > From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> > Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 21:16:26 +0100
> > Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > > Like I said: it does disable creating the file for me.
> >
> > Try `emacs -q -l test.el` with test.el:
> >
> > (setq auto-save-default nil)
> >
> > wait a bit and `~/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/.saves-<pid>-<hostname>~`
> > will be created.
>
> That's exactly what I did, except that these settings were in ~/.emacs
> and not loaded after startup.  I waited for 30 seconds, and didn't see
> any auto-save-list file in ~/.emacs.d/.  Not sure why it happens for
> you.

Tried yet on another platform and Emacs version and using the method
you described and it still happened. The thing is that for some reason
the time it takes to create the file is not consistent, sometimes it's
30s (auto-save-timeout) other times is 2m :s. Made a video
https://youtu.be/metU0u2umtQ.

Message #34 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2020 10:31:14 +0200

> From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 22:09:59 +0100
> Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > > (setq auto-save-default nil)
> > >
> > > wait a bit and `~/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/.saves-<pid>-<hostname>~`
> > > will be created.
> >
> > That's exactly what I did, except that these settings were in ~/.emacs
> > and not loaded after startup.  I waited for 30 seconds, and didn't see
> > any auto-save-list file in ~/.emacs.d/.  Not sure why it happens for
> > you.
> 
> Tried yet on another platform and Emacs version and using the method
> you described and it still happened. The thing is that for some reason
> the time it takes to create the file is not consistent, sometimes it's
> 30s (auto-save-timeout) other times is 2m :s. Made a video
> https://youtu.be/metU0u2umtQ.

Apologies, you are right.

But this seems to be working as intended.  Emacs creates that
directory if it doesn't yet exist whenever it enters do-auto-save, and
it does that before it loops over all the buffers, so it cannot yet
know whether any of the buffers wants auto-saving.  It cannot refrain
from creating the directory (and the listing file inside it) based on
the value of auto-save-default alone, because that value could have
been changed half-way through a session, and some of the buffers still
want to be auto-saved.  We could perhaps make two loops over the
buffers, one before creating the directory and one after, but that
doesn't seem like an efficient way (think of sessions with many
hundreds of buffers), and since a way exists of disabling the creation
of that directory by customizing auto-save-list-file-prefix, there
doesn't seem to be a need for punishing the users who do want
auto-saving.

OK?

Message #37 received at 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: João Guerra <joca.bt <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 38875 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38875: 26.2; auto-save-list-file-name still created when
 auto-save-default is nil
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 17:45:11 +0100

Thanks for the explanation.

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