Edit write-protected files by breaking hard links

Posted by Taymon on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Taymon
Published on 2012-09-07T12:10:19Z Indexed on 2012/09/16 15:41 UTC
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linux

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emacs

A directory which I own and can write to contains hard links to files that I don't own and don't have write permission for. I want to open and edit these files in Emacs. When I save my changes, Emacs should rename the existing hard link by appending ~, then write my new version of the file as a new file owned by me.

I was under the impression that Emacs could just do this (because of the way it does backups), but it's not working; when I save, it attempts to change the file's permissions in order to write to it (and fails because I don't own the file). How do I make this happen?

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