autotype: Timestamps
9 Maintaining Timestamps in Modified Files
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The ‘time-stamp’ command can be used to update automatically a template
in a file with a new time stamp every time you save the file. Customize
the hook ‘before-save-hook’ to add the function ‘time-stamp’ to arrange
this. It you use Custom to do this, then ‘time-stamp’ is conveniently
listed as an option in the customization buffer.
The time stamp is updated only if the customizable variable
‘time-stamp-active’ is on, which it is by default; the command
‘time-stamp-toggle-active’ can be used to toggle it. The format of the
time stamp is set by the customizable variables ‘time-stamp-format’ and
‘time-stamp-time-zone’.
The variables ‘time-stamp-line-limit’, ‘time-stamp-start’,
‘time-stamp-end’, ‘time-stamp-count’, and ‘time-stamp-inserts-lines’
control finding the template. Do not change these in your init file or
you will be incompatible with other people’s files. If you must change
them, do so only in the local variables section of the file itself.
Normally the template must appear in the first 8 lines of a file and
look like one of the following:
Time-stamp: <>
Time-stamp: " "
The time stamp is written between the brackets or quotes:
Time-stamp: <1998-02-18 10:20:51 gildea>