auto-save-file-name-transforms

auto-save-file-name-transforms is a variable defined in `files.el'.
Its value is

(("\\`/[^/]*:\\([^/]*/\\)*\\([^/]*\\)\\'" "/tmp/\\2" t))

Documentation:
Transforms to apply to buffer file name before making auto-save file name.
Each transform is a list (REGEXP REPLACEMENT UNIQUIFY):
REGEXP is a regular expression to match against the file name.
If it matches, `replace-match' is used to replace the
matching part with REPLACEMENT.
If the optional element UNIQUIFY is non-nil, the auto-save file name is
constructed by taking the directory part of the replaced file-name,
concatenated with the buffer file name with all directory separators
changed to `!' to prevent clashes. This will not work
correctly if your filesystem truncates the resulting name.

All the transforms in the list are tried, in the order they are listed.
When one transform applies, its result is final;
no further transforms are tried.

The default value is set up to put the auto-save file into the
temporary directory (see the variable `temporary-file-directory') for
editing a remote file.

On MS-DOS filesystems without long names this variable is always
ignored.

You can customize this variable.

This variable was introduced, or its default value was changed, in version 21.1 of Emacs.