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An indirect buffer shares the text of some other buffer, which is called the base buffer of the indirect buffer.
The text of the indirect buffer is always identical to the text of its base buffer; changes made by editing either one are visible immediately in the other.
But in all other respects, the indirect buffer and its base buffer are completely separate. They can have different names, different values of point, different narrowing, different markers, different major modes, and different local variables.
An indirect buffer cannot visit a file, but its base buffer can. If you try to save the indirect buffer, that actually works by saving the base buffer. Killing the base buffer effectively kills the indirect buffer, but killing an indirect buffer has no effect on its base buffer.