Suppose I want to open a file in an existing Emacs session using su or sudo, without dropping down to a shell and doing sudoedit or sudo emacs. One way to do this is
C-x C-f /sudo::/path/to/file
but this requires an expensive round-trip through SSH. Is there a more direct way?
[EDIT] @JBB is right. I want to be able to invoke su/sudo to save as well as open. It would be OK (but not ideal) to re-authorize when saving. What I'm looking for is variations of find-file and save-buffer that can be "piped" through su/sudo.
The nice thing about Tramp is that you only pay for that round-trip to SSH when you open the first file. Sudo then caches your credentials, and Emacs saves a handle, so that subsequent sudo-opened files take much less time.
I haven't found the extra time it takes to save burdening, either. It's fast enough, IMO.