Hi all, This is a patch for a preference-corruption issue. XEmacs (I use xemacs-21.5.27) corrupts the ~/.emacs file when you follow the steps below. It has happened to me both on Ubuntu Linux and on FreeBSD. The poor guy posting at https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2005-September/002851.html also experienced it. == Steps to reproduce == * Make a new user on your *nix PC * Log on as that user * Make a ~/.emacs file * Use GNU Emacs's custom.el tool, or use vi, to customize one or more variables * Add something to the top of the ~/.emacs file (somewhere above the custom-set-variables statement) that xemacs can't understand, such as the lone word: foobarbazquux * As that user, start xemacs for the first time * At the "Migrate init file to ~/.xemacs/? (yes or no)" prompt, enter "no" == What happened == Now XEmacs will clobber the custom-set-variables and custom-set-fonts clauses in your ~/.emacs file. It replaces them with: (custom-set-variables '(load-home-init-file t t)) (custom-set-faces) == What should have happened == XEmacs should not have tried to modify the ~/.emacs file. It should have known that if it tried to save a new custom-set-variables clause that the clause might have been missing all the preset variables. == My proposed fix == See patch below. To make the patch, I copied two lines from http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/emacs/emacs/lisp/cus-edit.el?revision=... into the xemacs21-devel-mule port's unpacked source. Then I modified it to check even more aggressively: it refuses to try to save a user's customizations any time the init file didn't fully load, even if the custom file is a different file than the init file. This is because it seems that the variable custom-file was set (to /home/j/.emacs) on my PC and I am worried it may be set elsewhere too. I tested the patch by deleting my cus-edit.elc and pasting in the new cus-edit.el in my xemacs lisp directory. It works fine. I sent the patch to the FreeBSD folk (at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=114031 you can see my bug report) and they merged the patch into their own XEmacs distribution. But they did not send the patch to you folks. So, I am sending it to you now. The patch is below. Cheers, Jason --- xemacs-21.5.27/lisp/cus-edit.el.orig Tue Jun 26 04:10:18 2007 +++ xemacs-21.5.27/lisp/cus-edit.el Tue Jun 26 04:14:52 2007 ＠＠ -3756,6 +3756,8 ＠＠ ;;;###autoload (defun custom-save-all () "Save all customizations in `custom-file'." + (when init-file-had-error + (error "Cannot save customizations; init file was not fully loaded")) (let ((inhibit-read-only t)) (custom-save-variables) (custom-save-faces) _______________________________________________ XEmacs-Beta mailing list XEmacs-Beta(a)xemacs.org http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xemacs-beta