Re: Null filename ("") is considered to correspond to an existing, readable, and writable file?

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Drew Adams wrote:

   Tedious, perhaps, but it is, first of all, a reference manual. Many people
   will not read it in a linear fashion, front to back. When I want to know
   what a function does and how to use it, I look up that function.

But if you do not know the basics about how file name arguments are
normally treated, you probably should more or less read the chapter on
files front to back.  It would look very silly to explain in each
function docstring that takes a file name as an argument, and in each
description of such a function in the Elisp manual, the difference
between absolute and relative file names, the difference between hard
and soft links, the meaning of ~ in a file name, what shell
environment variables are, how remote files are handled and
recognized, the meaning of `.' and `..', what wildcards are, what makes
a file name magic and so on and so on...

Sincerely,

Luc.