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Andrey G. Grozin wrote:

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Henri Lesourd wrote:

Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote:

For every file.tm, texmacs creates a backup file called file.tm~ . The
default configuration is that file.tm~ is stored in the same directory
as that of file.tm . How can I configure texmacs so that all the
backup files are stored in a separate directory? Is there any option
like that in the first place? If not, do you think this option
qualifies for a wish list bug? I can file the bug myself, but not sure
whether such a functionality is already in place or not!

It depends. Traditionnaly (i.e. emacs), the ~ files
are stored in the same directory. As far as the
feature you propose is concerned, I'm pretty sure
it doesn't exist yet in TeXmacs, so feel free to
fill a wish. As for me, I hate these ~ files, so
I use another feature that disables their creation
in the first place, namely Edit/Preferences/Autosave/Disable.

I use emacs all the time, and I find *~ files extremely useful (if I forgot what changes I made last time, I just do
diff foo~ foo
).

Different people, different patterns of using the software...

I see a problem with the proposed feature to put backup files to a separate directory. Different files from different directories can have identical names, and the backup file from editing one of them can overwrite the backup file from another file.

This is a real problem ; thus the spec of this new feature is in
fact not clear...

I think this is not acceptable. With the current (emacs-like) behaviour, this is not possible, because all files in a single directory have distinct names, of course.

A possible workaround would be to name the ~ files using a dot : we would
have foo and .foo~, for example. This way, the ~ file doesn't usually appear
when using ls.

The real point about these ~ files would be to gain a better understanding
of what are the benefits and the problems with this feature. Currently,
I see :

1. [BENEFIT] one can recover the last version, and use it to go back
to the last version, or do various things with it (diff foo foo~) ;

2. [PROBLEM] it is not very clear **when** the ~ file is recorded. Because
of this, one cannot really count on it to recover old versions, etc. To
state it differently, the ~ system is not a guarantee that you can always
recover old (or the last interesting) versions. As a consequence of this,
if you want such a guarantee, you must rely on another mechanism (i.e.
doing backup copies of your directory, using CVS, etc.), and the ~ is
then redundant. Anyway, the point is that the ~ mechanism is not reliable
for the purpose of recovering old versions. Sometimes it works, sometimes
not. But it is true that in some cases, it saves your life. Thus it
remains very useful. But it is incomplete ;

3. [PROBLEM] the ~ naming mechanism interferes badly with the
shell : it doubles the number of .tm files that appear as
an output of ls (or inside a file explorer under X) ; on
the other hand, it disturbs the TAB completion mechanism ;

But there are perhaps other problems : in particular, it would be
interesting to know the problems met by other people ;

Kamaraju : what are the things you dont like that leaded you into
looking for a solution where the ~ files are stored in a separate
directory ? Is it because of interferences with the shell (point 3
above) or is it because something else ?

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• store the backup files in a separate directory, Kamaraju Kusumanchi, 03/10/2006
  • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Henri Lesourd, 03/10/2006
    • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Andrey G. Grozin, 03/11/2006
      • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Henri Lesourd, 03/11/2006
        • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, David MENTRE, 03/11/2006
          • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Henri Lesourd, 03/11/2006
        • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Kamaraju Kusumanchi, 03/11/2006
          • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Kris Kuhlman, 03/11/2006
        • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Andrey G. Grozin, 03/12/2006
          • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Henri Lesourd, 03/12/2006
            • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, David MENTRE, 03/12/2006
              • Re: [TeXmacs] store the backup files in a separate directory, Kamaraju Kusumanchi, 03/12/2006

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