No graceful exit if .emacs-places cannot be written?

[wfc]

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In GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2005-02-04 on porky.build.redhat.com
configured using `configure  --build=i386-redhat-linux --host=i386-redhat-linux 
--target=i386-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix= --prefix=/usr 
--exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc 
--datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib 
--libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/usr/com 
--mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-pop --with-sound'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: C
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I sudo'd to be another user ('X'), however $HOME was still
defined to by my own directory.  I then edited a file owned by X
and tried exiting Emacs with C-x C-c.  AFter saying yes to save
the file in question, the next prompt was:

    File .emacs-places is write-protected; try to save anyway? (yes or no)

I understood what was happening, so I said 'no' figuring that it
simply would skip trying to update my places file.  The response,
however was:

    Attempt to save to a file which you aren't allowed to write

Hmmmm.   So I tried C-x C-c again.  This time the response was:

    Save file /home/wfc/.emacs-places? (y, n, !, ., q, C-r or C-h)

Answered no.

    Modified buffers exist; exit anyway? (yes or no)

Answered yes.

    File .emacs-places is write-protected; try to save anyway? (yes or no)

Answered yes -- and we're right back where we started from.  I've
also tried answering yes to the 'try to save anyway' which of
course didn't work.  For the record, my .emacs-places file
permissions are:

    -rw-r--r--  1 yyy zzz 1751 Jun 21 13:56 /home/yyy/.emacs-places

I hope it's clear that I did not expect Emacs to maintain my places file, only 
that it should have given me a graceful way out.  As it was I had to suspend 
the process and then kill -9 it.


Recent input:
C-h C-p ESC x r e p o r t - e m a c s - b u g RET

Recent messages:
Loading regexp-opt...done
END  <-- ~wfc/.emacs
Loading jka-compr...done
For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
Loading sendmail...done
Note: file is write protected
Loading places from ~/.emacs-places...
Loading places from /home/wfc/.emacs-places...done
Loading emacsbug...done
call-interactively: Text is read-only