Open a file with su/sudo inside Emacs

Question

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

Answer 1

Ugh. Perhaps you could open a shell in Emacs and exec sudo emacs.

The problem is that you presumably don't just want to open the file. You want to be able to save it later. Thus you need your root privs to persist, not just exist for opening the file.

Sounds like you want Emacs to become your window manager. It's bloated enough without that. :)