gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[jidanni]

Why doesn't gnus make a backup of its .newsrc.eld?
Don't ask me "Why, what could ever go wrong?"
Just save one old version by default.

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Dave Goldberg]

>>>>> On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:15:12 +0800, jidanni@jidanni.org said:

> Why doesn't gnus make a backup of its .newsrc.eld?
> Don't ask me "Why, what could ever go wrong?"
> Just save one old version by default.

Mine does.  I always have .newsrc.eld~ with the previous version.  I
don't see anything in my settings that suggests I've done something
special to have it.

-- 
Dave Goldberg
david.goldberg6@verizon.net

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Dave Goldberg <david.goldberg6@verizon.net>:

> Mine does.  I always have .newsrc.eld~ with the previous version.  I
> don't see anything in my settings that suggests I've done something
> special to have it.

Ah... mine don't, because of this setting in .emacs:
(setq make-backup-files nil)

(The setting goes back to 1993-1995, and PC-NFS becoming very confused
when new versions of files got new inodes (ie. when I edited a file in
emacs on unix, programs on the PC still saw the old version).  I could
change this now, I guess... but I've never had much use for the ~
backups so losing them was actually losing a nuisance.  The autosave
files on the other hand, them I could not do without)

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Andreas Schwab]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

>>>>>> Dave Goldberg <david.goldberg6@verizon.net>:
>
>> Mine does.  I always have .newsrc.eld~ with the previous version.  I
>> don't see anything in my settings that suggests I've done something
>> special to have it.
>
> Ah... mine don't, because of this setting in .emacs:
> (setq make-backup-files nil)

You can have it anyway.

(defun my-gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook ()
  (set (make-local-variable 'make-backup-files) t)
  (set (make-local-variable 'version-control) t)
  (set (make-local-variable 'delete-old-versions) t)
  (set (make-local-variable 'kept-old-versions) 0)
  (set (make-local-variable 'kept-new-versions) 6))
(add-hook 'gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook 'my-gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook)

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[jidanni]

Oh, every body missed (info "(gnus)Startup Files") "If you want
version control for this file, set `gnus-backup-startup-file'."
Well, maybe it should be t by default.

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Reiner Steib]

On Mon, Dec 15 2008, jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:

> Oh, every body missed (info "(gnus)Startup Files") "If you want
> version control for this file, set `gnus-backup-startup-file'."
> Well, maybe it should be t by default.

Whether backups of ~/.newsrc.eld are created is controlled by
`make-backup-files'.  `gnus-backup-startup-file' just controls whether
Gnus makes numerical backups, like `version-control' does for other
Emacs files.  In other words, `gnus-backup-startup-file' overrides
`version-control' for .newsrc.eld, nothing more.

So with the defaults (make-backup-files == t, gnus-backup-startup-file
== never) you get a single backup file for .newsrc.eld (see the doc
string of `version-control').  One could argue that
`gnus-backup-startup-file' should default to the value of
`version-control', but as .newsrc.eld tends to become large, it might
be a good idea to create only a single backup.  But defaulting to t
(i.e., make numeric backup versions unconditionally) — independent
from the value of `version-control' — is a bad idea, IMHO.

For now, I fixed the doc string of `gnus-backup-startup-file' which
was misleading:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
--- gnus-start.el	4 Sep 2008 06:04:04 -0000	7.67
+++ gnus-start.el	15 Dec 2008 19:37:27 -0000
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
   :type 'file)
 
 (defcustom gnus-backup-startup-file 'never
-  "Whether to create backup files.
+  "Control use of version numbers for backups of `gnus-startup-file'.
 This variable takes the same values as the `version-control'
 variable."
   :version "22.1"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> jidanni@jidanni.org:

> Oh, every body missed (info "(gnus)Startup Files") "If you want
> version control for this file, set `gnus-backup-startup-file'."  Well,
> maybe it should be t by default.

Didn't miss it exactly.  I've never looked, because I'm not so much
interested in having a backup version of this file (or any file).

However, I _am_ interested in moving the mostly static information
(group parameters, server and agent settings), residing in this file,
into a separate file that isn't as large, and isn't saved as often.

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[jidanni]

(I now do (setq gnus-backup-startup-file version-control) in .gnus.el,
and (setq version-control t) in .emacs.)

SB> However, I _am_ interested in moving the mostly static information
SB> (group parameters, server and agent settings), residing in this
SB> file, [.newsrc.eld] into a separate file that isn't as large, and
SB> isn't saved as often.

And can be edited by humans [even if only when gnus is turned off.]
E.g., I can never use the "Customize" system (too dazzling), and edit
~/.emacs-custom.el by hand.

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> Why doesn't gnus make a backup of its .newsrc.eld?
> Don't ask me "Why, what could ever go wrong?"
> Just save one old version by default.

If doing so, we'll also have to backup nnfolder-marks, nnml-marks,
and nntp-marks, that all are preferred to .newsrc.eld.

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[jidanni]

Oh, there it is
-rw-r--r-- 1 95765 2008-12-12 13:12 .newsrc.eld
-rw-r--r-- 1 95751 2008-12-12 12:06 .backups/.newsrc.eld!!!home!jidanni!~
I see, I am using
;;; backup-dir.el --- allow backup files to live in some other directory(s).
I found somewhere. Well, that's only one measly backup...

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Tassilo Horn]

jidanni@jidanni.org writes:

> Oh, there it is
> -rw-r--r-- 1 95765 2008-12-12 13:12 .newsrc.eld
> -rw-r--r-- 1 95751 2008-12-12 12:06 .backups/.newsrc.eld!!!home!jidanni!~
> I see, I am using
> ;;; backup-dir.el --- allow backup files to live in some other directory(s).
> I found somewhere. Well, that's only one measly backup...

You don't need an external lib to do that.  That's what I use:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq version-control t)

;; Save the 20 last versions!
(setq kept-old-versions 0)
(setq kept-new-versions 20)
(setq delete-old-versions t)
(setq backup-directory-alist
      '((".*" . "~/.backupFiles/")))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: gnus should backup .newsrc.eld

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org>:

> If doing so, we'll also have to backup nnfolder-marks, nnml-marks, and
> nntp-marks, that all are preferred to .newsrc.eld.

However, the .newsrc.eld also is the single repository for much
information that's mostly static:
 - Group parameters
 - Servers that are browsed to

That makes sense to back up (and IMO makes sense to move to a separate
file).