Disassociate file from buffer
reddit / emacs

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jojohohanon · 2022-07-01 18:55

I have a buffer (shell) with useful history, but by mistake I have now
saved the buffer, creating a "shell" file in the directory, which
confuses other tooling.

Deleting the file is easy, but of course emacs recreates #shell# for
me. How can I remove the association from buffer to the file, turning
it back into a file-less shell buffer?

I've found searching for this leads only suggestions to kill the
buffer (sure, but there has to be a better way) or very basic how-to
for file and buffer deletion.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
bram85 · 2022-07-02 05:22

Try evaluating `(set-visited-file-name nil)` in the shell buffer. I
wrapped this call in a function and bound it to a key. Sometimes there
are files I want to modify (e.g. sort lines) but prevent I actually
write the modifications back to the file.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jojohohanon · 2022-07-02 19:15

This worked quite well, from initial testing.  Thanks!