Re: current directory

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: help-gnu-emacs@vsbe.com
> Cc: eliz@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:16:32 -0400
> 
> > The current directory is different for each buffer.  If you want the
> > script to do the right thing for the file /a/b/c/file, start the
> > script from the buffer which visits that file, not from the buffer
> > that visits /g/d/f/file1.
> 
> Eli, thank you, I figured this much. So, if I want to look up a variable which is in /a/b/c/file, but the ID file is in the /g/d/f tree - I am screwed.

That is a different situation than the one you described in your
original message.  The original message said the problem was that
Emacs would behave as if the current directory were /g/d/f, which was
on another filesystem from /a/b/c, and that the script needed to be
run in the /a/b/c tree.  Now you are saying something different.

Could you please describe the situation more completely?
Specifically, how do you invoke the script from the shell's prompt,
and from which directory; and how doing that from Emacs screws what
you are used to doing outside Emacs?  I'm sure there's a simple
solution to your problems, but I cannot suggest a solution if the
problem keeps changing under my feet.

> > You are wrong: Emacs does _exactly_ what the user expects: all
> > operations from a buffer that visits a file assume the default
> > directory is the directory of that file.  This is not a global value,
> > each buffer has its own setting of the default directory.
> >
> 
> Well, what makes you think that you can speak for all users?

Because complaints about the current behavior are extremely rare, if
not absent.

> I sure don't expect an editor to do it, no other editor I came across in almost 20 years suffers from this malaise.

Emacs does many things other editors don't -- this is what makes it so
outstandingly good.