How to run an `after-save-hook` only when the buffer has been saved manually

Question

This question is inspired by https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/5947/.

Assume that I have a function like

(defun do-some-actions () ()
(..put a copy of the current file in a specific folder...)
  )

And I would like that the above function to be run after saving files. The following hook can do the job:

(add-hook 'after-save-hook 'do-some-actions)

But in this way Emacs runs the function do-some-action even for the files which have not been manually saved. For instance when I install the packages via Melpa, Emacs itself saves some files with the name package_name-autoloads.el in the directory ~/.emacs.d/elpa/package_name/ and even though these files have not been saved manually, the function do-some-actions is executed.

My question is about the possibility to prevent Emacs to this after-save-hook when the file has not been saved manually.

Answer 1

Firstly you need to define what "saved manually" actually means. It could cover multiple commands, to my mind. M-x apropos-command RET save\|write RET probably includes all the typical cases.

Once you know which commands you're interested in, you could simply test the this-command variable in your hook function, to see whether its value is a member of your list of "saved manually" commands.

e.g.:

(defun my-after-save-actions ()
  "Used in `after-save-hook'."
  (when (memq this-command '(save-buffer save-some-buffers))
    ;; put a copy of the current file in a specific folder...
    ))

(add-hook 'after-save-hook 'my-after-save-actions)

Answer 2

Here's an alternative solution:

(defcustom after-save-interactively-hook nil
  "Normal hook that is run after a buffer is saved interactively to its file.
  See `run-hooks'."
  :group 'files
  :type 'hook)

(defun save-buffer-and-call-interactive-hooks (&optional arg)
  (interactive "p")
  (save-buffer arg)
  (when (called-interactively-p 'all)  ;; run post-hooks only if called interactively
    (run-hooks 'after-save-interactively-hook)))

(global-set-key [(control x) (control s)] 'save-buffer-and-call-interactive-hooks)

(defun run-mode-specific-after-save-interactively-buffer-hooks ())

(add-hook 'after-save-interactively-hook 'run-mode-specific-after-save-interactively-buffer-hooks t)

that I use.