When Emacs makes a backup file, its name is normally constructed by appending ‘~’ to the file name being edited; thus, the backup file for eval.c would be eval.c~.
If access control stops Emacs from writing backup files under the usual names, it writes the backup file as ~/.emacs.d/%backup%~. Only one such file can exist, so only the most recently made such backup is available.
Emacs can also make numbered backup files. Numbered backup file names contain ‘.~’, the number, and another ‘~’ after the original file name. Thus, the backup files of eval.c would be called eval.c.~1~, eval.c.~2~, and so on, all the way through names like eval.c.~259~ and beyond.
The variable version-control
determines whether to make
single backup files or multiple numbered backup files. Its possible
values are:
nil
Make numbered backups for files that have numbered backups already. Otherwise, make single backups. This is the default.
t
Make numbered backups.
never
Never make numbered backups; always make single backups.
The usual way to set this variable is globally, through your init file
or the customization buffer. However, you can set
version-control
locally in an individual buffer to control the
making of backups for that buffer’s file (see Local Variables). Some
modes, such as Rmail mode, set this variable. You can also have Emacs
set version-control
locally whenever you visit a given file
(see Local Variables in Files).
If you set the environment variable VERSION_CONTROL
, to tell
various GNU utilities what to do with backup files, Emacs also obeys the
environment variable by setting the Lisp variable version-control
accordingly at startup. If the environment variable’s value is ‘t’
or ‘numbered’, then version-control
becomes t
; if the
value is ‘nil’ or ‘existing’, then version-control
becomes nil
; if it is ‘never’ or ‘simple’, then
version-control
becomes never
.
If you set the variable make-backup-file-name-function
to
a suitable Lisp function, you can override the usual way Emacs
constructs backup file names.