[ILUG] Emacs saving files edited by root

[Glenn Strong]

On Friday, February 16, 2007 at 07:24 +0000, Niall O Broin wrote:
> I have asked google, but with no great success. Last time I asked,  
> Padraig Brady pointed me to http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/21.5/ 
> html/xemacs_17.html#SEC141 but for the life of me, I can't see why (I  
> just found this now when googling, having found my old question, and  
> I followed Padraig's link)

When emacs saves a file it usually puts the old file aside as a backup
and saves a new file with the updated contents. There are two ways it
can do this, and one will change the owner (to reflect the most recent
user to edit the file). Redhat probably defaulted to the _other_ one.

What's the value of the variable backup-by-copying on your emacs? That
variable will control the method used. If it's non-nil then the
copying method will be used when saving files, which should leave the
ownership untouched. 

Cheers,
-- 
Glenn Strong