Re: Documentation for custom-file - is not (load custom-file) needed?

[Lennart Borgman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan Monnier" <address@hidden>

> W.r.t removing custom-file: some users may set custom-file in their .emacs
> and expect it to do something, so we may as well keep it.

Sorry, I disagree on this. The only thing I really can think of where
custom-file is used to do something is in CVS Emacs where custom-file is
loaded by startup.el if it was not loaded before. I do not think it is any
big problem if this does not work any more since it is only in CVS. That is
not to say I do not like the feature, it is just that I believe it would be
good to get rid of the name custom-file since it could be in
(custom-set-variables ...) right now and that could cause problems as we
have seen earlier in this discussion.


> > Agree, but: As I pointed out earlier I think that if an eval is beeing
done
> > then (buffer-file-name) should be used instead. This gives the same file
> > name as load-file-name would have given during load. The reason is that
I
> > think this makes it easier to change "custom file".
>
> I'd rather not try to be too clever.
> After all, when moving the custom file, you need to tell future Emacsen
> where it'll be, so you need to change your .emacs to either
> (setq custom-file "newfile") or (load "newfile").  Just M-C-x won't cut
it.

I am not sure about this, but I can see situations where it would be good if
eval set the "custom file". It is however tricky anyway if we do not reach a
state where "custom file" could be changed by "easy customization".

> I suggest we do this slowly and progressively.  E.g. we can start by
making
> custom-file a defvar (the current defcustom is just misleading since you
> can't really customize it meaningfully).  Then we can introduce the
> custom-files thingy that uses load-file-name to keep track of where things
> are saved.  This would at first only be used to detect strange situations
> and warn the user about it.  After that, we can start thinking again what
it
> is exactly that we want and how to get it.

Agree, except that I believe we should immidieately also change the name of
custom-file to something else, perhaps custom-file-in-use (since it is going
to be set by custom-set-variables).

- Lennart