find-file, file-name-handler-alist, and FTP URLs

[Sam Steingold <sds@podval.org>]

Emacs does not handle FTP URLs correctly:
(find-file "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/")
results in
Use M-x make-directory RET RET to create the directory and its parents
#<buffer ~/Mail/ftp:/ftp.gnu.org/pub/>

the expected behavior is obviously equivalent to
(find-file "/ftp.gnu.org:/pub/")

here is what I use:

(defun sds-url-to-ange-format (str)
  "Translate from the URL format to ange-ftp/efs format.
`\\(ftp\\|file\\)://user:pwd@host:port/path' ==> `/user@host#port:/path'.
Only `host' is required. If STR doesn't look like a URL, return STR."
  (let ((hre "[-a-zA-Z.0-9]+"))
    (if (string-match
         (concat "^\\(ftp://\\|file://\\)\\(" hre "\\(:" hre
                 "\\)?@\\)?\\(" hre "\\)\\(:[0-9]+\\)?\\(/[^/]*\\)?") str)
        (concat "/"
                (if (match-beginning 2)
                    (concat (substring str (match-beginning 2)
                                       (or (match-beginning 3)
                                           (- (match-end 2) 1)))
                            "@"))
                (match-string 4 str)
                (if (match-beginning 5)
                    (concat "#" (substring str (1+ (match-beginning 5))
                                           (match-end 5))))
                ":" (if (match-beginning 6)
                        (substring str (match-beginning 6))))
        str)))

(defun sds-find-file-url-handler (function filename &rest ignore)
  (funcall function (sds-url-to-ange-format filename)))

(push
 '("\\`\\(ftp://\\|file://\\)" . find-file-url-handler)
 sds-file-name-handler-alist)


any objections to adding something like that (without the sds prefix, of
course)?

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) on Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux)
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