.newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de>]

Arcady Genkin <a.genkin@utoronto.ca> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Groъjohann) writes:
> 
> > You have probably screwed up your .newsrc.eld.  I regret having to
> > tell you that the article marks are stored in .newsrc.eld :-/
> 
> It's probably overwritten now, but if not, try replacing .newsrc.eld
> with .newsrc.eld~.

this reminds me of a strange phenomenon I am observing with the
backup-files of .newsrc.eld. I have

    (setq version-control t)
    (setq kept-new-versions 2)
    (setq kept-old-versions 2)

in my .emacs to make XEmacs create not only foo~ backup-files, but a
series of numbered backup files. This works in most cases, for example
I have several backups of .bbdb:

    mike@nozomi ~$ ll .bbdb*
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7675 Mar 29 20:38 .bbdb
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7604 Mar  5 18:54 .bbdb.~1~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7641 Mar 21 20:02 .bbdb.~2~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7661 Mar 24 01:02 .bbdb.~4~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7627 Mar 25 20:09 .bbdb.~5~

but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:

    mike@nozomi ~$ ll .newsrc.eld*
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike       178191 Mar 30 08:50 .newsrc.eld
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike       178151 Mar 30 08:49 .newsrc.eld~
    mike@nozomi ~$ 

Why not? 

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mike.fabian@gmx.de>   <mike@nozomi.rhein-neckar.de>