From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Thien-Thi Nguyen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Null filename ("") is considered to correspond to an existing, readable, and writable file? Date: 07 Jan 2006 15:04:40 -0500 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1136664304 5845 80.91.229.2 (7 Jan 2006 20:05:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 20:05:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 07 21:05:01 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EvKJ6-0004xx-23 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 21:04:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EvKKw-0004VK-6i for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:06:50 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EvKKk-0004Uj-9o for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:06:38 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EvKKi-0004TG-Lt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:06:38 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EvKKi-0004T1-EX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:06:36 -0500 Original-Received: from [207.245.121.137] (helo=mail.agora-net.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA:16) (Exim 4.34) id 1EvKMh-0006AP-25 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:08:39 -0500 Original-Received: from ttn by mail.agora-net.com with local (Exim 4.50) id 1EvKIq-0006pE-17; Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:04:40 -0500 Original-To: "Drew Adams" In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 27 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.4 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:48828 Archived-At: "Drew Adams" writes: > - The confusion that could (and will) arise from the fact that there > is no explanation of the file-name arg for these functions whose names > suggest that they act differently than they do. It shows, too, what > you must do to deal correctly with the problem. Such an example, by > itself, would in fact be enough as doc to dispel possible confusion: > it shows that `file-readable-p' by itself does not guarantee that the > name names a readable file. the directory is a "readable file" in the filesystem, if you lump directories and files together, as is convenient to do for certain operations. instead of worrying whether or not the empty string is a filename, the better question to ask is how/where (in the manual) to establish the pervasiveness of `default-directory' and its role in resolving into filenames those strings that are passed to various functions. the answer (which i tend to agree with) seems to be that due to its pervasiveness, explaining the relationship for every leaf in the tree is a lose compared to explaining the relationship once, in the trunk. if you read the documentation from the leaves to the trunk, that's your problem, and that's the source of the potential confusion. thi