bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Kevin Ryde]

It'd be good if dired "M" `dired-do-chmod' could act on the "." and ".."
directories in the dired buffer.

As far as I can tell there'd be no reason they shouldn't.  I struck this
wanting to add write permission to a directory which had been left
read-only (something out of an unzip or untar).

(Presently dired-do-chmod also queries for the mode before announcing it
won't act on . or .., whereas of course usually in other places in emacs
such failing pre-conditions are checked before user input.)


In GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2016-01-23 on x86-csail-01, modified by Debian
Configured using:
 `configure --build i586-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs24:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.5/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.5/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --build i586-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --sharedstatedir=/var/lib
 --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib
 --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs24:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.5/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.5/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-x=yes --with-x-toolkit=lucid --with-toolkit-scroll-bars
 --without-gconf --without-gsettings 'CFLAGS=-g -O2
 -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wall'
 'CPPFLAGS=-Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' LDFLAGS=-Wl,-z,relro'

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kevin Ryde <user42_kevin@yahoo.com.au>
> Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2016 17:20:27 +1100
> 
> It'd be good if dired "M" `dired-do-chmod' could act on the "." and ".."
> directories in the dired buffer.
> 
> As far as I can tell there'd be no reason they shouldn't.

For some reasons, see the old discussion that starts here:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2003-06/msg00067.html

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Kevin Ryde]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
>   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2003-06/msg00067.html

That slightly goes on and on ... :-).  I have no opinion of the S
symlink discussed there, but an M chmod seems clearer, doesn't move
anything, etc ...

On the R rename also noted there, I think I have an open bug of it
acting successfully on "." (good, in my view) but then failing to
refresh current buffer (bad).

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kevin Ryde <user42_kevin@yahoo.com.au>
> Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 21:57:54 +1100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> >
> >   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2003-06/msg00067.html
> 
> That slightly goes on and on ... :-).

You are supposed to stop reading where it wanders too far off ;-)

> I have no opinion of the S symlink discussed there, but an M chmod
> seems clearer, doesn't move anything, etc ...
> 
> On the R rename also noted there, I think I have an open bug of it
> acting successfully on "." (good, in my view) but then failing to
> refresh current buffer (bad).

The challenge is to suggest a solution that side-steps all those
gotchas mentioned in that discussion.

Thanks.

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Kevin Ryde <user42_kevin@yahoo.com.au> writes:

> It'd be good if dired "M" `dired-do-chmod' could act on the "." and ".."
> directories in the dired buffer.

(I'm going through old bug reports that unfortunately weren't
resolved at the time.)

I tried doing `M' on "." and ".." in a directory, and it seems to work
fine for me (in Emacs 26.1 and 28), so is this a problem that has gone
away?  (I had a brief look at the change history, but didn't see
anything that actually claimed to change the behaviour here.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Kevin Ryde via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>
> I tried doing `M' on "." and ".." in a directory, and it seems to work
> fine for me (in Emacs 26.1 and 28), so is this a problem that has gone
> away?

Ah I'm far far behind the pace at the moment.  What I hadn't noticed at
the time was that the mode change is in fact made on disk, but get also
an error message (and no update of the line).  So if the error message
is gone then that's good.

bug#22578: 24.5; dired-do-chmod on . or .. directories

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Kevin Ryde <user42_kevin@yahoo.com.au> writes:

> Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>>
>> I tried doing `M' on "." and ".." in a directory, and it seems to work
>> fine for me (in Emacs 26.1 and 28), so is this a problem that has gone
>> away?
>
> Ah I'm far far behind the pace at the moment.  What I hadn't noticed at
> the time was that the mode change is in fact made on disk, but get also
> an error message (and no update of the line).  So if the error message
> is gone then that's good.

OK; I'm closing this bug report, then.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no