load .emacs from url

Question

I guess the real quesion is : how to evaluate a file via it's url?

Of course it wouldn't be the actual .emacs file, but it it would serve that purpose, so you can run your personal settings on any PC that has emacs installed.

I'm aware of the fact that loading a buffer in certain situations (mainly 'toggling stuff) is not the same as evaluating a buffer afterwards, but that's OK.

Answer 1

browse-url-emacs from the standard url library makes this simple. It displays the resulting buffer, which you probably don't want in this case, but we can wrap it with save-window-excursion to circumvent that issue.

(save-window-excursion
  (eval-buffer (browse-url-emacs "http://foo/bar.el")))

or with some rudimentary error handling:

(condition-case e
    (save-window-excursion
      (eval-buffer
       (browse-url-emacs "http://foo/bar.el")))
  (error (message "Could not load remote library: %s" (cadr e))))