Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!tank.uchicago.edu!pearce
From: pearce@tycho.yerkes.uchicago.edu (Eric C. Pearce)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: .emacs
Message-ID: <PEARCE.89Jun5143600@tycho.yerkes.uchicago.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 89 19:36:00 GMT
References: <8906051517.AA01192@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov> <40936@bbn.COM>
Sender: news@tank.uchicago.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Chicago, Yerkes Observatory
Lines: 34
In-reply-to: jr@bbn.com's message of 5 Jun 89 17:28:38 GMT


>   ... or make a hard or symbolic link from .emacs to .emacs.elc, and put
>   all your stuff in your .emacs.el.  Remember to byte-compile the latter
>   when you change it.  (The byte-compiler preserves links to the .elc
>   file).  I use the following csh alias to avoid carrying the
>   byte-compiler code around in my running emacs:
>
>     alias elc 'emacs -batch -f batch-byte-compile \!*'

I have the following in my .emacs file, which keeps the real startup code
byte compiled for me...

	(defvar custom-startup-file "~pearce/emacs/emacs")

	(defun byte-compile-if-newer (file)
	  "Byte compile file.el if newer than file.elc"

	  (if (file-newer-than-file-p (concat file ".el")
				      (concat file ".elc"))
	      (if (string= "pearce" (user-real-login-name))
		  (byte-compile-file (concat file ".el")))))
	
	(byte-compile-if-newer custom-startup-file)
	
	(load custom-startup-file)

The extra comparison to user-real-login-name keeps me from
byte-compiling if I have su'ed somewhere.
--

     - Ecp

       Eric C. Pearce, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago.
       pearce@tycho.yerkes.uchicago.edu  or  pearce@oddjob.uchicago.edu