From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: exec-path "/:" prefix; file-name-handler-*; start-process Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 20:33:28 -0600 (MDT) Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <200208240233.g7O2XSI11683@wijiji.santafe.edu> References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1030156692 9867 127.0.0.1 (24 Aug 2002 02:38:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 02:38:12 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17iQoV-0002Z2-00 for ; Sat, 24 Aug 2002 04:38:11 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17iRI9-0004pX-00 for ; Sat, 24 Aug 2002 05:08:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17iQpj-0001Jt-00; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 22:39:28 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17iQk0-0000ha-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 22:33:32 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17iQjy-0000h0-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 22:33:31 -0400 Original-Received: from pele.santafe.edu ([192.12.12.119]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17iQjx-0000ge-00; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 22:33:29 -0400 Original-Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g7O2Xr510225; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 20:33:53 -0600 (MDT) Original-Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.9.3) id g7O2XSI11683; Fri, 23 Aug 2002 20:33:28 -0600 (MDT) X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@wijiji using -f Original-To: q.edg3784561@quarl.org In-Reply-To: (message from Karl Chen on Tue, 20 Aug 2002 01:28:04 -0700 (PDT)) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:6825 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:6825 Why does initializing `exec-path' need to prepend a "/:" to paths that "would otherwise be treated as magic" ? Because without that they really would mean something else. If you have a directory /foo:, Emacs would get confused by the name /foo: without the /: in front. All single-directory (single slash) paths in PATH such as /bin turn into /:/bin. The name /bin is not really magic, but it seems to be magic because of the hostname completion facility. These names don't need to have /: added, and should not have it. In the current development version, /: is not added to them. I am not sure what caused the change; perhaps it has to do with installing Tramp. It could be that this has introduced some other bug or that the hostname completion facility has been deactivated. Kai, could you see whether the hostname completion facility still works? Anyway, I fixed this problem for 21.3. On many systems bash is first found in /bin. (which "bash") finds "/:/bin/bash" since (file-executable-p "/:/bin/bash") returns t. However, "/:/bin/bash" is not acceptable as an `explicit-shell-file-name' for `shell' since it eventually calls `comint-exec' which calls `start-process'. "/:/bin/bash" is a valid name in Emacs for that file, so it should work in start-process. I fixed that, and call-process too.