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From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: lg.zevlg@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: RE: file-exists-p on empty string
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 14:23:59 -0800 (PST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <b9664ae3-b6cb-4268-bdb1-fcde1188a384@default> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <DC0AD4FF-51C1-4059-AC58-98F39FEFBAD3@gmail.com>

> > The problem is that docstrings describe the behavior of a specific
> function, so they usually don't mention the more general aspects that
> affect all functions of a given subsystem, such as here the general
> treatment of the empty string when used as a file name. Otherwise,
> every file-name-manipulating function would have to repeat this
> information in its docstring.
> 
> So, maybe FILENAME argument at least could be renamed to NAME to give
> at least some hint that this is not a filename, but just a name hint
> which will be expanded and canonised to real filename?

That's not good enough.  It might make sense
to you now, now that you know something about
how the input is interpreted as a file name.

The parameter name FILENAME is more appropriate
than NAME.  But the doc string should say more
about it.  You can't rely on just the parameter
name to convey all of the meaning that you're
(now) reading into it.



  reply	other threads:[~2019-02-27 22:23 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 34+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-02-27 22:09 file-exists-p on empty string lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 22:23 ` Drew Adams [this message]
2019-02-27 22:41   ` Evgeny Zajcev
2019-02-27 23:23     ` Drew Adams
2019-02-28  0:08       ` Evgeny Zajcev
2019-02-28  1:16     ` Stefan Monnier
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-02-27 20:07 lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 21:18 ` Stefan Monnier
2019-02-27 22:01   ` Drew Adams
2019-02-28  3:24     ` Stefan Monnier
2019-03-06  9:51   ` Michael Albinus
2019-03-08  6:11     ` Stefan Monnier
2019-03-09  8:48       ` Michael Albinus
2019-02-27 12:29 Evgeny Zajcev
2019-02-27 14:15 ` Michael Albinus
2019-02-27 15:29   ` Troy Hinckley
2019-02-27 15:43   ` Robert Pluim
2019-02-27 16:01     ` Michael Albinus
2019-02-27 16:55       ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-02-27 18:09         ` Michael Albinus
2019-02-27 16:11     ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-02-27 16:16       ` Robert Pluim
2019-02-27 16:30     ` Andreas Schwab
2019-02-27 19:40     ` lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 15:53 ` Stefan Monnier
2019-02-27 16:00   ` Robert Pluim
2019-02-27 16:15     ` Stefan Monnier
2019-02-27 16:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-02-27 18:42   ` lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 18:46     ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-02-27 19:04       ` lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 19:16         ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-02-27 19:29           ` lg.zevlg
2019-02-27 19:30         ` Stefan Monnier

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