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From: ajw@ansa.co.uk (Andrew Watson)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: RMAIL does something I don't understand...
Message-ID: <9102071604.AA14490%crippen@ansa.co.uk>
Date: 7 Feb 91 16:04:59 GMT
References: <1991Feb5.020846.24982@mprgate.mpr.ca>
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Mark Anderson <manderso@mprgate.mpr.ca> wrote:

> Aliases from the .mailrc file are stored in Emacs in the variable
> mail-aliases.  I suspect that changes to .mailrc after RMAIL reads it
> the first time are not reflected in the variable.

This is the case.

> 						     You can force Emacs
> to read the .mailrc by setting mail-aliases to 't.

I long ago got bored with this game and make the following small hack
to ensure that editing the .mailrc (using emacs, of course) caused the
variable to be reset automagically, and hence brought the changes made
into effect immediately.

Insert the following lines at the bottom of your .mailrc:

#
# Local Variables:
# eval: (setup-mailrc-hook)
# End:

And put the following two function definitions in your .emacs, or
where-ever:

(defun mailrc-reset ()
  (message "Reset aliases variable")
  (sit-for 1)
  (setq mail-aliases t)
  nil)     ; this is rather important!

(defun setup-mailrc-hook ()
  (make-local-variable 'write-file-hooks)  ; make it have a separate value here
  (setq write-file-hooks (cons 'mailrc-reset write-file-hooks)))

       .                           Regards,
      / \^
     / / \ \                           Andrew
    / /   \ \
   '=========`      Andrew Watson             Tel:      +44 223 323010
  /| |\ | <  |\	    APM Ltd, Poseidon House,  Fax:      +44 223 359779
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 ---------------    Cambridge CB3 0RD, UK     Internet: ajw@ansa.co.uk