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Is there any way I can programatically determine whether a notebook has unsaved edits?

Is that asterisk on the right of the notebook name represented in a notebook option or something, like HasUnsavedEdits?

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As you suspected, the asterisk to the right of the notebook file name only appears when there are unsaved edits. – Eli Lansey Feb 2 '12 at 17:12
I know, I wanna know if I can programatically ask if the notebook "has the asterisk". Just edited to make it clear, my bad – Rojo Feb 2 '12 at 17:14
Ah, OK. The edits clarified the question. – Eli Lansey Feb 2 '12 at 17:19
I'm curious what your need for this is. Care to share? – Eli Lansey Feb 2 '12 at 17:37
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@EliLansey I am adding a little function on my personal package of helper functions, to allow for automatic backuping of notebooks. You can set up the frequency of saves, if you want backup copies on a subdirectory, how often do you want them, and of course, stop the task... I wanted this info to avoid backing up a file again that hasn't changed since the last backup. "FileModificationTime" and "MemoryModificationTime" also come in handy. I hate not having undos, and having powercuts and blue screens of death – Rojo Feb 2 '12 at 17:50
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1 Answer

up vote 14 down vote accepted

I think that

"ModifiedInMemory" /. NotebookInformation@SelectedNotebook[]

does what you want (ie, returns False if the notebook is saved, True if it is not saved). Although maybe not quite, try NotebookInformation[CreateDocument["hi"]]

But it seems to work once you modify a notebook that's been saved once. I could be wrong though...

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Yeah, thanks. I didn't know about NotebookInformation – Rojo Feb 2 '12 at 17:22
The document you created that way doesn't have the asterisk, nor pops up the Save Us dialog when you close it. It's a weird behaviour, but that information is exactly what I was looking for – Rojo Feb 2 '12 at 17:28
@Rojo there are notebook options that you can for these things, I think. But I'm not that familiar with this sort of thing. Thanks for the accept – acl Feb 2 '12 at 17:30

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