Alternative to Customize?

[manuel-uberti]

Hi,

first of all thanks for this package and for making it available on GNU ELPA. It works as expected with direnv.

However, why did you choose to go the Customize way with buffer-env-safe-files? I usually do not use Customize, so I specifically don't put any settings related to it neither in my init.el nor in a different custom file.

Shouldn't something like this be enough for the purpose buffer-env-safe-files covers?

(setq-default buffer-env-safe-files '("/path-to/your/.envrc"))

Of course I may be missing something or not getting it entirely. Note that I am also fine with loading a custom.el file with buffer-env-safe-files in it, so this is not a bug report. Just plain curiosity.

[astoff]

Thanks for the comment! As a security measure (culled from direnv), that variable saves a file name and a hash of its content, so it has this shape:

(custom-set-variables
 ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(buffer-env-safe-files
   '(("/home/user/project1/.envrc" . "977c...64f8")
     ("/home/user/project2/.envrc" . "1e73...ef5b")
...

Are you proposing to allow the user to bypass the security measure for a given file by replacing the (FILE . HASH) cons with just a string?

I don't use Customize for customizations, but my custom.el has a few things in it that I regard more as data than configurations: safe-local-variable-values, package-selected-packages, org-agenda-files. They have several aspects in common: (1) are not written by hand, (2) change occasionally by interactive methods and (3) are only relevant to a specific computer. So I don't want to commit them my in config and their place is custom.el seems totally okay to me. How do you (setq custom-file "/dev/null")-people deal with those mostly-data things?

[manuel-uberti]

Are you proposing to allow the user to bypass the security measure for a given file by replacing the (FILE . HASH) cons with just a string?

If it is a security measure, then no, do not change it.

How do you (setq custom-file "/dev/null")-people deal with those mostly-data things?

I do not set custom-file to /dev/null, though. Actually, before buffer-env I didn't have anything related to cus-edit.el in my configuration. As for the mostly-data things you mention, I only use package-selected-packages, and that I set it at the beginning of my init.el.

Anyway, since security is involved and it does not make any sense to set it manually since it is not written by hand in the first place, I understand better now your choice for Customize.

Thank you!

[astoff]

I actually think it's pretty reasonable to provide a file-based way to store that data. I can imagine a couple of ways to do that (single file or in the direnv style, which would interoperate but looks messier to me) and I haven't made my mind yet.

[WJCFerguson]

Even though I use customize, I would appreciate some other save method. I keep my config in a git repo, and this means I have to maintain and cull an ever growing list shared between contexts - work, home etc.. I'd rather be able to make it a git-ignored file local to a machine.

Thanks for the package - I had been using direnv.el and this seems to work better.

[astoff]

Okay, I think I should indeed add something like this. I would ideally use the new multisession API from Emacs 29, so I asked if they would be willing to backport it as an ELPA package. Let's wait a bit and see: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=59995

[Concerning the way you manage your settings — what I do is, I use a separate custom file (in my case ~/.emacs.d/custom.el) and make that one git-ignored. Then I use it also to save the occasional variable that is too machine-specific and I don't want to keep under VC. I think this is makes sense because buffer-env is not the only package to abuse customize to store "var" data).]

[WJCFerguson]

Thank you! Just to outline my usage, I have a fairly large custom.el file with important customizations in it, so I keep it in vc. It would be nice if customize allowed you to divert subsets of customizations to other files, but AFAIK it doesn't. I think it would an improvement for me to pull all my persistent customizations into my use-package :custom blocks, but a lot of people probably do what I'm currently doing. I don't actually hit a lot of other issues like this one.