https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/16514

In the issue, I switched to using NppExec to reproduce, rather than PythonScript, lest it be interpreted as a PS bug and not a N++ bug.

Example: If these files are there:

change.log@2022-12-28_064818
new 2@2022-12-26_075922

One can infer that the change.log and new 2 filetabs have unsaved changes.

Yes. Before when I said I have some “wild” ideas…, yours was one of them. I didn’t want to go that far to solve it. :-)

Maybe I’m attempting to solve something that isn’t really a problem for me, anyway, because I don’t operate with a setup that permits unsaved files when exiting Notepad++ (and thus there is no possibility to have unsaved files when N++ starts up).

However, I was working on a script for posting that I was trying to make work in all modes…

I think the safest way is something like this…

# python3
editor.getText() == open(WHAT_EVER_FILE, 'rb').read().decode()

Sorry, that wasn’t at startup; that was just “live”.

When I did enable periodic-backup and made sure that I had toggled through all the files so it made the 7sec backup for the edited ones, then restarted Notepad++, you are right: it didn’t bring back new 1, and all the files claimed to be saved, even though they are properly shown as edited/unsaved in the tabbar list.

on startup, activating a saved "Peter's Scratchpad.md"
on startup, activating a saved "LICENSE"
on startup, activating a saved "change.log"
on startup, activating a saved "new 2"
on startup, activating a saved "23908-saved-unsaved-list.py"
on startup, activating a saved "startup.py"

So at startup, the answer is wrong. And if I rerun the script manually without making new changes, it still shows them as all being saved.

So yes, I concur that getModify() apparently returns whether it’s been changed since the load, rather than whether it’s been changed from the “saved” state.

Maybe it’s a timing issue for you. Try putting a quarter or half-second sleep

I have never before found this kind of “sleep” to be necessary, in PythonScripting.
But…I tried it, using a full 2 seconds of sleep.
No change for me. :-(

Then I thought maybe I should try it with PS 2.0, because, from my earlier output one can see that I was using PS 3. No change for me from that test either (file still all present “saved”).

I’m stumped. :-(

new1 was unsaved but no changes (no content yet)

This tab would be empty of content, correct?
When I try having such a tab, Notepad++ won’t even “bring it back” after a restart – the tab is eliminated. I suppose that makes sense: if you’ve created a “scratch” tab, but haven’t put anything in it, why should N++ keep it around? But…this is not your experience, so…(I don’t know what to make of that).

Thanks for doing some experimentation on my behalf, Peter Jones.

Can anyone that’s inclined to, try and duplicate this?

It gives the values I expect: new1 was unsaved but no changes (no content yet), LICENSE was changed and unsaved, new2 was unsaved with changes. And the script output agreed.

Actually, I ran that from the console instead of a script. Run it again from a saved script:

Still works for me.

Maybe it’s a timing issue for you. Try putting a quarter or half-second sleep between the activateFile and the getModify – I know that some of my scripts, I have to give Notepad++ enough time to switch active files and potentially re-lex the document (especially if it’s big)