Re: problem reading ~/.emacs.desktop

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 05:04, ken <gebser@mousecar.com> wrote:

> Very cool idea.  Here's what happened.

> After exiting emacs and going back in with "emacs -Q -f desktop-load", I
> got the error message in the minibuffer
>
> Symbol's function definition is void: desktop-load

> If, however, I do "M-x desktop-read" test.txt is loaded as expected.

Yeah, my mistake, I meant desktop-read.

This test shows that your Emacs setup does not have any trouble
reading or writing desktop files. So the one that gives you trouble
must have some formatting problem or somesuch. I'd suggest just
deleting it and recreating it (by loading the files you want to have
and then M-x desktop-save'ing).

> Hey, you're good.  Yeah, I've got some of that in one of my files.  But
> what's the "suffix" that's missing?

It means that Emacs thinks that the Local Variables section has a
format problem; that's why I ask about CRLF vs LF.

The Local Variables section is a bit strict about formatting. Entries
can have prefixes, for example:

-- Local Variables:
-- mode: text
-- tab-width: 4
-- End:

If the Local Variables line has a prefix, all of them must too.
Similarly, if there's a suffix:

-- Local Variables: ==
-- mode: text       ==
-- tab-width: 5     ==
-- End:             ==

will work, but

-- Local Variables: ==
-- mode: text       ==
-- tab-width: 5     =
-- End:             ==

will produce the "missing suffix" error.

> Not likely, but, yeah, possible.  Occasionally I'll work on a file that
> came from Windows.  Do you mean an emacs configuration file?  Given the
> results above, is it relevant?

It could be relevant in the Local Variables problem.

    Juanma