Subject: Re: bug#65864: [PATCH] Add option to save a buffer without running save hooks

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:59:39 -0400

> For example, I have `delete-trailing-whitespace' in my
> `before-save-hook', but for a particular buffer I wanted to save it
> without removing the trailing whitespace, because trailing whitespace
> was syntactically meaningful in that case (the buffer contained some
> Markdown-like source code).

So you needed it for use by a human rather than for use by ELisp code?

> I searched the Internet for some solutions and what I ended up doing is
> C-x C-q (to make the buffer read-only), C-x C-s, and C-x C-q to make the
> buffer writable again (from
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14913398/in-emacs-how-do-i-save-without-running-save-hooks).
> It felt a bit like a "hack".

It's a hack, indeed, and it could fail if the hook function was careful to
let-bind `inhibit-read-only`.

Personally I think I would have used `C-x h M-x write-region RET` (or
fixed my config since clearly having this hook function active for this
file is wrong).

        Stefan