How can I make Emacs retain its undo history for my buffer after doing revert-buffer or using auto-revert-mode?
In Vim, if a file that is open in a buffer is changed on disc, Vim prompts me to reload the file. I can then simply click 'u' to undo the reload if I so wish and even go back further from then. Emacs seems to trash all the undo information the moment I revert the buffer.
Emacs allows you to set revert-buffer-function to override the behaviour. Here's a revert-buffer implementation that keeps the history.
;; emacs doesn't actually save undo history with revert-buffer
;; see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2011-04/msg00151.html
;; fix that.
(defun revert-buffer-keep-history (&optional IGNORE-AUTO NOCONFIRM PRESERVE-MODES)
(interactive)
;; tell Emacs the modtime is fine, so we can edit the buffer
(clear-visited-file-modtime)
;; insert the current contents of the file on disk
(widen)
(delete-region (point-min) (point-max))
(insert-file-contents (buffer-file-name))
;; mark the buffer as not modified
(not-modified)
(set-visited-file-modtime))
(setq revert-buffer-function 'revert-buffer-keep-history)
You could use the before-hook to save the previous buffer-content to the kill-ring:
(add-hook 'before-revert-hook (lambda () (kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))
The upcoming Emacs-24.4 does what you want by default.
I guess the obvious approach would be a function which kills the current buffer content, and then calls insert-file to read in the current content from the file.
If the changes to the file included changes to the character encoding, there might be problems? I haven't tested that.
Here's my current attempt. It's a little hairy IMO, but it works okay.
;; Allow buffer reverts to be undone
(defun my-revert-buffer (&optional ignore-auto noconfirm preserve-modes)
"Revert buffer from file in an undo-able manner."
(interactive)
(when (buffer-file-name)
;; Based upon `delphi-save-state':
;; Ensure that any buffer modifications do not have any side
;; effects beyond the actual content changes.
(let ((buffer-read-only nil)
(inhibit-read-only t)
(before-change-functions nil)
(after-change-functions nil))
(unwind-protect
(progn
;; Prevent triggering `ask-user-about-supersession-threat'
(set-visited-file-modtime)
;; Kill buffer contents and insert from associated file.
(widen)
(kill-region (point-min) (point-max))
(insert-file-contents (buffer-file-name))
;; Mark buffer as unmodified.
(set-buffer-modified-p nil))))))
(defadvice ask-user-about-supersession-threat
(around my-supersession-revert-buffer)
"Use my-revert-buffer in place of revert-buffer."
(let ((real-revert-buffer (symbol-function 'revert-buffer)))
(fset 'revert-buffer 'my-revert-buffer)
;; Note that `ask-user-about-supersession-threat' calls
;; (signal 'file-supersession ...), so we need to handle
;; the error in order to restore revert-buffer.
(unwind-protect
ad-do-it
(fset 'revert-buffer real-revert-buffer))))
(ad-activate 'ask-user-about-supersession-threat)
Annoyingly, I've only just noticed all the relevant-looking information in the revert-buffer docs, so there's probably a much simpler way to do this.
If the value of revert-buffer-function is non-nil, it is called to
do all the work for this command. Otherwise, the hooks
before-revert-hook and after-revert-hook are run at the beginning
and the end, and if revert-buffer-insert-file-contents-function is
non-nil, it is called instead of rereading visited file contents.
Related
Is there any way to have EMACS save your undo history between sessions?
I'm aware of the savehist lib, the saveplace lib, the desktop lib, and the windows lib, these all provide some session control but none seem to save the undo history.
From version 0.4 onwards, undo-tree supports persistent storage of undo-tree data between sessions "out of the box". (Note that there are significant bug-fixes related to this feature in more recent versions; the latest version at the time of writing is 0.6.3.)
Simply enable the undo-tree-auto-save-history customization option to automatically save and load undo history in undo-tree buffers. Or use the undo-tree-save/load-history commands to save and load undo history manually.
You need at least Emacs version 24.3 for this to work reliably, but with a recent enough Emacs it works very well.
Add the following to your .emacs file :
(global-undo-tree-mode)
(setq undo-tree-auto-save-history t)
(setq undo-tree-history-directory-alist '(("." . "~/.emacs.d/undo")))
Explanation
(global-undo-tree-mode) enables undo tree.
(setq undo-tree-auto-save-history t) enables auto save of undo history.
(setq undo-tree-history-directory-alist '(("." . "~/.emacs.d/undo"))) so that your project does not get littered with undo-history savefiles.
Here's some code I wrote which seems to do the trick. It isn't bullet-proof, as in, it doesn't handle all the file handling intricacies that Emacs does (e.g. overriding where auto-save files are put, symlink handling, etc.). But, it seemed to do the trick for some simple text files I manipulated.
(defun save-undo-filename (orig-name)
"given a filename return the file name in which to save the undo list"
(concat (file-name-directory orig-name)
"."
(file-name-nondirectory orig-name)
".undo"))
(defun save-undo-list ()
"Save the undo list to a file"
(save-excursion
(ignore-errors
(let ((undo-to-save `(setq buffer-undo-list ',buffer-undo-list))
(undo-file-name (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name))))
(find-file undo-file-name)
(erase-buffer)
(let (print-level
print-length)
(print undo-to-save (current-buffer)))
(let ((write-file-hooks (remove 'save-undo-list write-file-hooks)))
(save-buffer))
(kill-buffer))))
nil)
(defvar handling-undo-saving nil)
(defun load-undo-list ()
"load the undo list if appropriate"
(ignore-errors
(when (and
(not handling-undo-saving)
(null buffer-undo-list)
(file-exists-p (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name))))
(let* ((handling-undo-saving t)
(undo-buffer-to-eval (find-file-noselect (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name)))))
(eval (read undo-buffer-to-eval))))))
(add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'save-undo-list)
(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'load-undo-list)
desktop-save-mode does not save buffer-undo-list by default. You just have to tell him!
(add-to-list 'desktop-locals-to-save 'buffer-undo-list)
Emacs Session appears to support this:
(add-to-list 'session-locals-include 'buffer-undo-list)
I have managed to get the undo history working by using the information provided here: http://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/3725/2287
Instead of patching the original file desktop.el.gz I created an advice that temporarily overrides (buffer-local-variables) then I use it together with the function that gathers information about the buffer.
(defun +append-buffer-undo-list-to-buffer-local-variables-advice (orig-fn &rest args)
"Override `buffer-local-variables' and call ORIG-FN with ARGS.
There is a bug in Emacs where the `buffer-undo-list' data is
missing from the output of `buffer-local-variables'. This
advice temporarily overrides the function and appends the
missing data."
(let ((orig-buffer-local-variables-fn (symbol-function 'buffer-local-variables)))
(cl-letf (((symbol-function 'buffer-local-variables)
#'(lambda () (append (funcall orig-buffer-local-variables-fn)
`(,(cons 'buffer-undo-list buffer-undo-list))))))
(apply orig-fn args))))
(advice-add #'desktop-buffer-info :around #'+append-buffer-undo-list-to-buffer-local-variables-advice)
(push 'buffer-undo-list desktop-locals-to-save)
(desktop-save-mode 1)
I hope this helps someone else.
How to kill the buffer in emacs without being questioned.
This will kill the current visible buffer without confirmation unless the buffer has been modified. In this last case, you have to answer y/n.
(global-set-key [(control x) (k)] 'kill-this-buffer)
I use this
(defun volatile-kill-buffer ()
"Kill current buffer unconditionally."
(interactive)
(let ((buffer-modified-p nil))
(kill-buffer (current-buffer))))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'volatile-kill-buffer) ;; Unconditionally kill unmodified buffers.
It will kill the buffer unless it's modified.
OK, I've done some poking around in the Emacs manual and found a working solution (as of Emacs 23.4.1). It's almost identical to Noufal's solution:
(defun kill-this-buffer-volatile ()
"Kill current buffer, even if it has been modified."
(interactive)
(set-buffer-modified-p nil)
(kill-this-buffer))
I've renamed the function a bit to make it a closer cousin to kill-this-buffer.
Apparently, the EmacsWiki has a page on this topic at http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KillBufferUnconditionally (modified in 2007), but the code is just a copy of Noufal's.
Use (kill-current-buffer) instead of (kill-this-buffer) if you want to bind it to some key. See the docs for (kill-this-buffer)
...
This command can be reliably invoked only from the menu bar,
otherwise it could decide to silently do nothing.
and (kill-current-buffer)
...
This is like ‘kill-this-buffer’, but it doesn’t have to be invoked
via the menu bar, and pays no attention to the menu-bar’s frame.
So I would put the following in my init.el:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'kill-current-buffer)
This works at least in emacs 26.1.
I use the following piece of code -- unlike Noufal's solution of ignoring the buffer being modified or not, this will save the buffer and then kill it. It also deletes the window which makes a difference when you have several sub-windows showing -- by default it will remove the window instead of switching to some other buffer. (To use this conveniently, you need to bind some key to it, of course.)
;; Kill the current buffer immediatly, saving it if needed.
(defvar kill-save-buffer-delete-windows t
"*Delete windows when `kill-save-buffer' is used.
If this is non-nil, then `kill-save-buffer' will also delete the corresponding
windows. This is inverted by `kill-save-buffer' when called with a prefix.")
(defun kill-save-buffer (arg)
"Save the current buffer (if needed) and then kill it.
Also, delete its windows according to `kill-save-buffer-delete-windows'.
A prefix argument ARG reverses this behavior."
(interactive "P")
(let ((del kill-save-buffer-delete-windows))
(when arg (setq del (not del)))
(when (and (buffer-file-name) (not (file-directory-p (buffer-file-name))))
(save-buffer))
(let ((buf (current-buffer)))
(when del (delete-windows-on buf))
(kill-buffer buf))))
I am finding myself editing a lot of files that are read-only. I usually hit C-x C-q to call toggle-read-only. Then I hit C-x C-s to save and get,
File foo.txt is write-protected; try to save anyway? (y or n)
After hitting y, the file is saved and the permissions on the file remain read-only.
Is there a way to shorten this process and make it so that simply saving a file with C-x C-s does the whole thing without prompting? Should I look into inserting chmod in before-save-hook and after-save-hook or is there a better way?
Adding a call to chmod in before-save-hook would be clean way to accomplish this. There isn't any setting you can change to avoid the permissions check.
Based on the follow-up question, it sounds like you'd like the files to be changed to writable by you automatically upon opening. This code does the trick:
(defun change-file-permissions-to-writable ()
"to be run from find-file-hook, change write permissions"
(when (not (file-writable-p buffer-file-name))
(chmod buffer-file-name (file-modes-symbolic-to-number "u+w" (nth 8 (file-attributes buffer-file-name))))
(if (not (file-writable-p buffer-file-name))
(message "Unable to make file writable."))))
(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'change-file-permissions-to-writable)
Note: When I tested it on my Windows machine, the file permissions didn't show up until I tried to save the buffer, but it worked as expected. I personally feel uneasy about this customization, but it's your Emacs. :)
I agree with Trey that universally doing a chmod on write is risky -- read-only files are read-only for a reason, IMHO. Here's a way to specifically override things on a per-buffer basis. It's not ideal in that it overrides file-writable-p for the life of the buffer (or at least until you toggle my-override-mode-on-save back to nil), but it makes you make a conscious decision on a file-by-file basis (sort-of; it's really a buffer-by-buffer basis, which is fairly similar). Of course since you're looking to automatically toggle the read-only flag when the file is visited, you might not be interested in this distinction. Still, here it is; enjoy it or ignore it as you will.
(make-variable-buffer-local
(defvar my-override-mode-on-save nil
"Can be set to automatically ignore read-only mode of a file when saving."))
(defadvice file-writable-p (around my-overide-file-writeable-p act)
"override file-writable-p if `my-override-mode-on-save' is set."
(setq ad-return-value (or
my-override-mode-on-save
ad-do-it)))
(defun my-override-toggle-read-only ()
"Toggle buffer's read-only status, keeping `my-override-mode-on-save' in sync."
(interactive)
(setq my-override-mode-on-save (not my-override-mode-on-save))
(toggle-read-only))
P.S. Thanks to Trey for the ad-return-value pointer in the other SO question.
Since I find it useful to be constantly reminded that I am about to edit a file I do not have permissions to, when I open a file in a buffer I want to force myself to proactively make the buffer writable wit C-x q. Opening it with tramp by hand however is quite tedious so I advise save-buffer to prompt me for password if it fails to write. I totally recommend you put this snippet in your .emacs
(defadvice save-buffer (around save-buffer-as-root-around activate)
"Use sudo to save the current buffer."
(interactive "p")
(if (and (buffer-file-name) (not (file-writable-p (buffer-file-name))))
(let ((buffer-file-name (format "/sudo::%s" buffer-file-name)))
ad-do-it)
ad-do-it))
For a reason I could no determine the Trey Jackson solution does not work on my gnu emacs 25.2 under windows: the file-modes-rights-to-number called from file-modes-rights-to-number fails.
If someone is stuck with the same problem he could use a less elegant but working solution replace block :
(chmod buffer-file-name (file-modes-symbolic-to-number "u+w" (nth 8 (file-attributes buffer-file-name))))
with block :
(cond ((or (eq system-type 'ms-dos) (eq system-type 'windows-nt))
(progn
(shell-command-to-string (concat "attrib -R " (buffer-file-name (current-buffer))))
(message "Setting file and buffer to writeable (%s style)" system-type)
))
((eq system-type 'gnu/linux)
(progn
(shell-command-to-string (concat "chmod u+w " (buffer-file-name (current-buffer))))
(message "Setting file and buffer to writeable (%s style)" system-type)
))
(t (message "file permission change not handle for OS %s" system-type))
)
Is there any way to have EMACS save your undo history between sessions?
I'm aware of the savehist lib, the saveplace lib, the desktop lib, and the windows lib, these all provide some session control but none seem to save the undo history.
From version 0.4 onwards, undo-tree supports persistent storage of undo-tree data between sessions "out of the box". (Note that there are significant bug-fixes related to this feature in more recent versions; the latest version at the time of writing is 0.6.3.)
Simply enable the undo-tree-auto-save-history customization option to automatically save and load undo history in undo-tree buffers. Or use the undo-tree-save/load-history commands to save and load undo history manually.
You need at least Emacs version 24.3 for this to work reliably, but with a recent enough Emacs it works very well.
Add the following to your .emacs file :
(global-undo-tree-mode)
(setq undo-tree-auto-save-history t)
(setq undo-tree-history-directory-alist '(("." . "~/.emacs.d/undo")))
Explanation
(global-undo-tree-mode) enables undo tree.
(setq undo-tree-auto-save-history t) enables auto save of undo history.
(setq undo-tree-history-directory-alist '(("." . "~/.emacs.d/undo"))) so that your project does not get littered with undo-history savefiles.
Here's some code I wrote which seems to do the trick. It isn't bullet-proof, as in, it doesn't handle all the file handling intricacies that Emacs does (e.g. overriding where auto-save files are put, symlink handling, etc.). But, it seemed to do the trick for some simple text files I manipulated.
(defun save-undo-filename (orig-name)
"given a filename return the file name in which to save the undo list"
(concat (file-name-directory orig-name)
"."
(file-name-nondirectory orig-name)
".undo"))
(defun save-undo-list ()
"Save the undo list to a file"
(save-excursion
(ignore-errors
(let ((undo-to-save `(setq buffer-undo-list ',buffer-undo-list))
(undo-file-name (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name))))
(find-file undo-file-name)
(erase-buffer)
(let (print-level
print-length)
(print undo-to-save (current-buffer)))
(let ((write-file-hooks (remove 'save-undo-list write-file-hooks)))
(save-buffer))
(kill-buffer))))
nil)
(defvar handling-undo-saving nil)
(defun load-undo-list ()
"load the undo list if appropriate"
(ignore-errors
(when (and
(not handling-undo-saving)
(null buffer-undo-list)
(file-exists-p (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name))))
(let* ((handling-undo-saving t)
(undo-buffer-to-eval (find-file-noselect (save-undo-filename (buffer-file-name)))))
(eval (read undo-buffer-to-eval))))))
(add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'save-undo-list)
(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'load-undo-list)
desktop-save-mode does not save buffer-undo-list by default. You just have to tell him!
(add-to-list 'desktop-locals-to-save 'buffer-undo-list)
Emacs Session appears to support this:
(add-to-list 'session-locals-include 'buffer-undo-list)
I have managed to get the undo history working by using the information provided here: http://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/3725/2287
Instead of patching the original file desktop.el.gz I created an advice that temporarily overrides (buffer-local-variables) then I use it together with the function that gathers information about the buffer.
(defun +append-buffer-undo-list-to-buffer-local-variables-advice (orig-fn &rest args)
"Override `buffer-local-variables' and call ORIG-FN with ARGS.
There is a bug in Emacs where the `buffer-undo-list' data is
missing from the output of `buffer-local-variables'. This
advice temporarily overrides the function and appends the
missing data."
(let ((orig-buffer-local-variables-fn (symbol-function 'buffer-local-variables)))
(cl-letf (((symbol-function 'buffer-local-variables)
#'(lambda () (append (funcall orig-buffer-local-variables-fn)
`(,(cons 'buffer-undo-list buffer-undo-list))))))
(apply orig-fn args))))
(advice-add #'desktop-buffer-info :around #'+append-buffer-undo-list-to-buffer-local-variables-advice)
(push 'buffer-undo-list desktop-locals-to-save)
(desktop-save-mode 1)
I hope this helps someone else.
What I must write in my .emacs file so that the *scratch* buffer is closed when I open Emacs?
(kill-buffer "*scratch*")
Not exactly the answer to your question, but you might like to know that you can choose to have a different buffer open on startup, or change the contents of the *scratch* buffer. For example:
;; Make *scratch* buffer blank.
(setq initial-scratch-message nil)
;; Make the buffer that opens on startup your init file ("~/.emacs" or
;; "~/.emacs.d/init.el").
(setq initial-buffer-choice user-init-file)
In the first example, the *scratch* buffer will be empty. In the second example, the *scratch* buffer will still exist, but user-init-file will be focused.
You can customize:
initial-buffer-choice
I set it to my homedir: "~/" to start in Dired mode.
I suspect from your question that you probably start emacs fairly often, perhaps even once for each file you want to edit. (If I'm wrong in this assumption, then the following comments don't apply to you.)
Emacs is designed to be started and then left running for weeks or months while you visit various files as you need to edit them. Emacs handles multiple files very well, so it's hardly even necessary to kill the associated buffers until you get 50 or 100 of them hanging around. I start emacs just after my window system starts, and it runs until my system shuts down or crashes. The initial scratch buffer is a non-problem in this mode, because I see it so infrequently.
I use this to kill the scratch buffer and open a new buffer in text mode called Untitled.
Found it on a newsgroup and modified it slightly.
(defun my-close-scratch ()
(kill-buffer "*scratch*")
(if (not (delq nil (mapcar 'buffer-file-name (buffer-list))))
(new-untitled-buffer)
))
(defun my-emacs-startup-hook ()
(my-close-scratch))
(add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook 'my-emacs-startup-hook)
(defun new-untitled-buffer ()
"Opens a new empty buffer."
(interactive)
(let ((buf (generate-new-buffer "Untitled")))
(switch-to-buffer buf)
(normal-mode)
(setq buffer-offer-save t))
(add-hook 'kill-buffer-query-functions
'ask-to-save-modified nil t)
)
To close Untitled when opening files from filemanager when emacs is not open I use this:
(defun my-close-untitled ()
(if (get-buffer "Untitled")
(kill-buffers-by-name "Untitled")))
(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'my-close-untitled)
The proper way is to add inhibit-startup-screen to the custom-set-variables section of your .emacs file.
(custom-set-variables
;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(inhibit-startup-screen t)
)