bug#37116: 26.1; User choice user-emacs-directory is not honored

[Eli Zaretskii]

[Please use Reply All so that the bug tracker is CC'ed and records the
discussion.]

> Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 18:18:17 +0200 (CEST)
> From: bruno.vasselle@laposte.net
> 
> > Please try the following patch instead of the one I sent earlier:
> Patched against master (ef8531d2): details below in 'git diff master'
> 
> Emacs still creates .emacs.d in my home dir.

This is expected, and cannot be helped, at least not easily, because
various variables are computed during the startup, when your init file
has not yet been processed.

But with the patch I sent the auto-save-history files should be in
your customized user-emacs-directory.  Did you check that?  If not,
please do.

> Furthermore, if I feed it with my actual 'init.el'  - which defines a 
> user-init-file emacs "custom.el" can play with
> under user-emacs-directory - I come up with:
> 
> Cannot open file file: No such file or directory, ~/.emacs.d/custom.el
> 
> in the minibuffer.

I cannot look into this without seeing a minimal init.el file that
causes this.  In particular, I need to understand how come your
init.el file uses ~/.emacs.d when your user-emacs-directory is
different.

> I very much appreciate your help, especially in this case where anybody would 
> ask "who cares?".
> 
> But I mind. I very mind, because I like emacs. But I don't like it omitting 
> respect for its users.

My latest patch should do that, please try it.

> I secretly hoped you would come to the conclusion that the solution was 
> already given in the bug report
> (actually more in wishlist) I've mentioned earlier 
> (https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=15539).

I don't think the solution proposed there would help in your case
because the value of user-emacs-directory is used to compute
auto-save-list-file-prefix before the command-line arguments are
processed.  IOW, by the time we look at the command-line arguments,
it's too late for auto-save-list-file-prefix: its value was already
computed using the default value of "~/.emacs.d".

> We're mutually wasting out times. Don't misunderstand me: you've got all my 
> respect, but I won't follow you
> furthermore in the direction you take.

Does this mean you are giving up on this issue, and don't want to
continue looking for its solution?