shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Swengtoo]

Greetings,
I just bit the bullet and upgraded my NTEmacs from version 19.34 to
version 21.2.

The new (ver. 21.2) NTEmacs is wonderful, but for some reason the
shell command doesn't invoke cygwin's bash as it used to do for me
under ver. 19.34. Instead, it invokes Windows command shell (via
cmdproxy.exe, I'm using W2K). I follow the instructions in
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/faq7.html#shell exactly, but
that doesn't seem to help.

Here is an execrpt from my .emacs file (that's been working perfectly
for the past 4 years and hasn't changed since then) relevant to the
subject:


	(progn ; not really win, just bash under win.
	  (setq shell-file-name "sh")
	  (setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name)
	  (setq explicit-sh-args '("-login" "-i"))
	  (setq shell-command-switch "-c")
	  (setq archive-zip-use-pkzip nil)
	  (setenv "SHELL" shell-file-name)
	  (setq win32-quote-process-args t)
	  (setq win32-enable-italics t)
	  (setq comint-process-echoes nil)
	  (setq hexlify-command "//c/EMACS-21.2/bin/hexl -hex ")
	  (setq dehexlify-command "//c/EMACS-21.2/bin/hexl -de -hex ")
	  )


Has anyone encountered this problem before? Do you know about
something that has changed and is missing from the above code? I know
I can "play" with the SHELL registry entry for emacs, but the
documentation clearly says that if I want to avoid that I can use
(setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name).

Many thanks in advance!
Swengtoo

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Bernd Wolter]

swengtoo@my-deja.com (Swengtoo) writes:


[...]

> Has anyone encountered this problem before? Do you know about
> something that has changed and is missing from the above code? I know
> I can "play" with the SHELL registry entry for emacs, but the
> documentation clearly says that if I want to avoid that I can use
> (setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name).
> 
> Many thanks in advance!
> Swengtoo

Hi Swengtoo,

I have a setup nearly identical to yours but also set those
environmental variables before doing the other stuff:

     (setenv "SHELL" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bash.exe")
     (setenv "PATH" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bin:c:/path/to/cygwin:c:/path/to/emacs/bin")

Perhaps this helps

bernd

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Swengtoo]

Bernd Wolter <mathae.wolter@gmx.de> wrote in message news:<u4rbgmfkl.fsf@gmx.de>...
> 
> I have a setup nearly identical to yours but also set those
> environmental variables before doing the other stuff:
> 
>      (setenv "SHELL" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bash.exe")
>      (setenv "PATH" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bin:c:/path/to/cygwin:c:/path/to/emacs/bin")
> 

Unfortunately, this didn't help. It seems that emacs ignores for some
reason those statements, but how could that be? it used to work (still
works!) perfectly under Emacs 19.34. What has changed?

Thanks!
Swengtoo

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[maierh]

swengtoo@my-deja.com (Swengtoo) writes:

> Bernd Wolter <mathae.wolter@gmx.de> wrote in message news:<u4rbgmfkl.fsf@gmx.de>...
>> 
>> I have a setup nearly identical to yours but also set those
>> environmental variables before doing the other stuff:
>> 
>>      (setenv "SHELL" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bash.exe")
>>      (setenv "PATH" "c:/path/to/cygwin/bin:c:/path/to/cygwin:c:/path/to/emacs/bin")
>> 
>
> Unfortunately, this didn't help. It seems that emacs ignores for some
> reason those statements, but how could that be? it used to work (still
> works!) perfectly under Emacs 19.34. What has changed?

You should try this within the '*scratch*' buffer with

  emacs -q 

Shell handling has changed from emacs-20 to emacs-21. You only need 
the SHELL environment variable or set the variable shell-file-name.

Harald

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Swengtoo]

maierh@myself.com wrote in message news:<uiszr3v9i.fsf@myself.com>...
> 
> You should try this within the '*scratch*' buffer with
> 
>   emacs -q 
> 
> Shell handling has changed from emacs-20 to emacs-21. You only need 
> the SHELL environment variable or set the variable shell-file-name.
> 

Thank you so much for the breakthrough in troubleshooting this.
Indeed, I invoked 'emacs -q' and in the *scratch* buffer I typed:

(setenv "SHELL" "/bin/sh.exe")

and then executed <M-x shell> and bingo - it worked!

But now I need to know why the same statement wouldn't work from my
.emacs - is it possible that evaluation stops prior to reaching this
statement (again, only in 21.2, not in 19.34...). If this is the case,
then I am even more puzzled since I encapsulated my original .emacs
within the following:

(setq debug-on-error t)
< original .emacs >
(setq debug-on-error nil)

to enable debug - and emacs does not report ANY errors.

What am I missing here?

Thank you so much!
Swengtoo

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Swengtoo]

swengtoo@my-deja.com (Swengtoo) wrote in message news:<b72a5ae6.0210250510.492b9535@posting.google.com>...
> But now I need to know why the same statement wouldn't work from my
> .emacs - is it possible that evaluation stops prior to reaching this
> statement (again, only in 21.2, not in 19.34...). If this is the case,
> then I am even more puzzled since I encapsulated my original .emacs
> within the following:
> 
> (setq debug-on-error t)
> < original .emacs >
> (setq debug-on-error nil)
> 
> to enable debug - and emacs does not report ANY errors.
> 
> What am I missing here?
> 

I finally solved the problem (thanks to single-step lisp debugging in
Emacs):
My shell customization code was conditioned by (eq window-system
'win32).

Well, guess what? in Emacs 19.34 window-system contained "win32" for
the NTEmacs environment, but now in Emacs 21.2 window-system returns
now "w32".

That's what has changed. I wish I could have read it somewhere in the
news without having to go through this debug effort (I am not a lisp
programmmer).

Anyway, now the problem is solved, thank you everybody and I hope that
this tip will help someone.

Swengtoo

Re: shell problems after upgrading NTEmacs from 19.34 to 21.2

[Jason Rumney]

swengtoo@my-deja.com (Swengtoo) writes:

> Well, guess what? in Emacs 19.34 window-system contained "win32" for
> the NTEmacs environment, but now in Emacs 21.2 window-system returns
> now "w32".
> 
> That's what has changed. I wish I could have read it somewhere in the
> news without having to go through this debug effort (I am not a lisp
> programmmer).

It is there in NEWS, as the second entry under "Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1"