bug#27170: 26.0.50; Suggestion: Optionally send package build output to log file not *Messages*

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

nljlistbox2@gmail.com (N. Jackson) writes:

> When installing/updating packages a lot of messages are generated.
> These clutter up the *Messages* buffer and make it hard to find
> recent messages from before the package operation.
>
> Worse, they often cause truncation of the *Messages* buffer so
> that recent messages from just before the package operation are
> deleted.

Yeah, that doesn't sound ideal...

> A potential solution to this would be, optionally, to have the package
> build output go to a log file instead of to the *Messages* buffer. Only
> the summary messages (number of packages updated, success in updating
> them etc.) need be written to *Messages*.

I don't think we'd actually want to write this to a log file, but there
could be a different log buffer.

To implement that, we'd need to export Vmessages_buffer_name to Lisp
Land (I think?), and we could then just rebind the variable to something
else before doing the package builds.

I think exporting the variable to Lisp Land sounds useful, in any case.

Any opinions here?

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   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no