[SOLVED] How to remove redundant file?

NewbProgrammer · 02-22-2018, 06:07 PM

I'm using Emacs as my editor.

$ ls
article.tex

This is what my directory looks like. However, when I edit with Emacs (Save and close the file) this happens:

$ ls
article.tex
article.tex~

These two files are exactly the same. How do I make Emacs not make a redundant file?

scasey · 02-22-2018, 06:16 PM

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question*, but I will point out that the file ending with ~ is a before changes backup of the file being edited.
To see that, make a change to the file before you save and close, and you'll see that the ~ file is not the same as the later file.
Use

Code:

ls -ltr

to see that it's both newer and a different size than the file being edited.

*I'm sure there's some way to tell emacs to not make backups. Try searching for "control emacs backups"...or man emacs for more information.

BW-userx · 02-22-2018, 06:50 PM

Code:

article.tex
article.tex~

that bold one is a temp file with your changes until the file is saved. Its required, you'll find a lot of text editors use this method.

NewbProgrammer · 02-22-2018, 07:22 PM

BW-userx,

I did explicitly tell Emacs to save by doing "C-x C-s" and then I quit afterwards.

The problem still persists.

rknichols · 02-22-2018, 08:40 PM

Emacs by default saves the old version of the file with a "~" suffix. You can turn that feature off. The option is called "make-backup-files", and in the options groups it's in Files->Backup. Or, you can avoid digging through the "Customize Emacs" menus and just edit your ~/.emacs file and insert a line

Code:

(setq make-backup-files nil)

NewbProgrammer · 02-22-2018, 09:06 PM

That helped!

Many thanks!