Subject: bug#31104: 26.1; Undo limits

From: Noam Postavsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 19:56:32 -0400

tags 31104 + wontfix
quit

Nick Helm <[email-masked]> writes:

> I keep bumping into Emacs's undo limits. 

> I know I can change the undo-*-limit variables to improve this
> situation, but I don't think users should have to do this.
>
> Bit of further navel-gazing...
>
> Simply raising the default undo limits (or advising users to raise it in
> their config) has problems too. Given a large enough edit, I've had the
> same issue reappear. I find it difficult to work out how an undo limit
> set in bytes translates into real-world editing behaviour.
>
> Perhaps a byte size is not the best way to specify undo limits, at least
> not for user-facing settings? Instead, could Emacs guarantee a minimum
> number of undo steps, say the 20 most recent, regardless of the amount
> of data it consumes? 

I don't see how Emacs can do better here (except maybe we should
consider just bumping up the default limits so that users are less
likely to hit them), since a single command can take an arbitrary amount
of data, and there is only a finite amount of memory.