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Whenever I edit a file in emacs, I get a link in the current directory that looks like

lrwxrwxrwx 1 mpersico users    65 Feb 15 12:04 .#theFile -> mpersico@myhostname.nnnnn:nnnnnnnnnn

where the 'n's are 0-9. The first five n's are the pid of the emacs process. The file only appears while there are unsaved edits. Typing one key in the buffer creates the file. Saving the buffer removes the file.

Any idea what that file is and if it can be moved somewhere else? It's causing spurious errors in my rsync snapshotting setup.

TIA

mpersico
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1 Answers1

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It's an interlock: it's created when a buffer is modified in order to allow emacs to warn you when somebody else has modified it. See https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Interlocking.html#Interlocking . I don't think you can move it to some other directory without compromising emacs's ability to detect such conflicts. OTOH, you can disable it (see the link above) and emacs will ignore the conflict all together.

NickD
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  • I ended up disabling it. I am working on a VM with a non-network mounted file system. I do not need interlock to save me from myself. What I need is my rsync to work every ten minutes. :-) – mpersico Feb 17 '17 at 04:15