Re: Default emacs init file location confusion

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Mon, 13 Jan 2020 08:53:47 +0100, Robert Pluim <address@hidden> said:

    Robert> This requires an etc/NEWS update as well.

Comments definitely welcome. Any hint of possible ambiguity is to be
ruthlessly eliminated.

+++
** Emacs can now use the XDG convention for init files.
For example, it can look for init.el in "~/.config/emacs/init.el", and
similarly for other init files.

The 'XDG_CONFIG_HOME' environment variable (which defaults to "~/.config")
specifies the parent directory of these and other configuration files.

Emacs will initially look for init files in their traditional
locations if "~/.emacs.d" or "~/.emacs" exist, even if
"$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs" also exists.  This implies that you must
delete or rename any existing "~/.emacs.d" and "~/.emacs" to enable
use of the XDG directory.

If "~/.emacs.d" does not exist, and Emacs has decided to use it
(i.e. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs does not exist), Emacs will create that
directory and set 'user-emacs-directory' to point to it.  Emacs will
never create "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs".