From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: Perry Smith <pedz@easesoftware.com>, 57536@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#57536: 28.1; filenotify problems on macOS with symbolic links to directories
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2022 13:42:16 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87h71nbc2v.fsf@gmx.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <83edwuqome.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Fri, 02 Sep 2022 09:25:29 +0300")
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
Hi,
>> Referencing these commands:
>> ; 1
>> (require 'filenotify)
>>
>> ; 2
>> (defun my-callback (directory)
>> (message (format "called %s" directory)))
>>
>> ; 3
>> (file-notify-add-watch "/private/tmp" '(change attribute-change) 'my-callback)
>>
>> ; 4
>> (file-notify-add-watch "/tmp" '(change attribute-change) 'my-callback)
>>
>> Starting with a fresh emacs -Q, if I execute lines 1, 2, and 3 and then
>> touch a file such as /tmp/OUT, I get the notification as I should.
>>
>> However if I start fresh, execute lines 1, 2, and 4, and touch /tmp/OUT,
>> I do not get a notification.
>>
>> On a Mac, /tmp is a symbolic link to private/tmp (relative path).
>
> I don't see any bug here. If file-notify-add-watch would resolve
> symlinks of its argument, we would be unable to watch changes to the
> symlink file itself.
I agree. Emacs' file notifications are not designed to follow
symlinks. The manual in (info "(elisp) File Notifications") is silent
about, perhaps we shall clarify.
> So if you want to watch changes for the target of a symlink, your Lisp
> program needs to resolve symlinks, e.g. by calling file-truename or
> something similar.
Yep.
>> I first discovered this issue using Helm's find-file and I entered a
>> report with Helm. The Helm developer reports that it works in his case
>> with Linux.
>
> That could be a (mis)feature of our use of inotify, which is used on
> GNU/Linux for implementing file notifications. AFAIU, inotify allows
> control on whether to follow symlinks when setting a watch, and its
> default is to follow symlinks. I think we should call inotify so as
> not to follow symlinks.
Yep. We shall go through our f-n libraries and check the current
behavior, preferred by a new test case. And we shall adjust the
libraries to behave similar.
Will do next days.
Btw, there are bug#16113 and bug#18883, which report a similar problem
in auto-reverting. A possible solution could be to extend the FLAGS arg
of file-notify-add-watch by a condition 'follow', which means to
supervise the expanded symlink instead of the link file itself.
inotify knows the mask bit IN_DONT_FOLLOW (which we haven't set yet),
see inotify(7). Other libraries might offer similar possibilities, which
I haven't checked yet.
Best regards, Michael.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-09-04 11:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-09-01 23:34 bug#57536: 28.1; filenotify problems on macOS with symbolic links to directories Perry Smith
2022-09-02 6:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-04 11:42 ` Michael Albinus [this message]
2022-09-04 13:10 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-04 14:26 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-04 14:49 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-07 12:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-07 15:57 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-16 15:27 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-16 15:56 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-16 16:39 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 9:02 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 9:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-17 13:16 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 14:07 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-17 15:03 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 13:27 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 13:53 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-09-17 15:15 ` Michael Albinus
2022-09-17 15:37 ` Eli Zaretskii
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=87h71nbc2v.fsf@gmx.de \
--to=michael.albinus@gmx.de \
--cc=57536@debbugs.gnu.org \
--cc=eliz@gnu.org \
--cc=pedz@easesoftware.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).