From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: -I switch to ls and dired. Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 15:47:24 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200406102047.i5AKlO402228@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200406090342.i593gjG01826@raven.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1086900567 6127 80.91.224.253 (10 Jun 2004 20:49:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 20:49:27 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Thu Jun 10 22:49:15 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BYWU7-0000zp-00 for ; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 22:49:15 +0200 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BYWU6-0000hn-00 for ; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 22:49:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1BYWUo-000743-4w for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:49:58 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1BYWUk-00073I-Ui for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:49:55 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1BYWUi-00071g-TN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:49:54 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1BYWUi-00071E-Nn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:49:52 -0400 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BYWTk-0006jA-AS; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:48:52 -0400 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i5AKmhuE024532; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 15:48:43 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id i5AKlO402228; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 15:47:24 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Thu, 10 Jun 2004 02:55:29 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:24800 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:24800 Richard Stallman wrote: The code that removes -R could be made smarter so that it detects R as an option, but not R as an argument. The rules for options are not that complicated. I believe that would be possible. However, it would seem that this would not be the end of the problems with options that take arguments (I believe that this just covers -I and nothing else.) Indeed, these arguments are not processed the way the shell does. Instead, they are just split at spaces. Quoting is ignored, shell variables are not expanded and so on. As a result, for instance, -I '* *', to exclude file names containing a space, will lead to an error. Also, R is by no means the _only_ problem and arguments are not the only problem either. For instance, trying `C-u i --ignore-backups' on some listed directory yields an error: Can't have dirs with and without -b switches together. Of course, there is a b in backups. There seem to be other examples all over dired and dired-aux. Dired seems to _systematically_ make two assumptions: 1. No options take arguments. Equivalently (or so I believe), -I is not used. 2. No long options are used. We can either just document those two assumptions or try to systematically get rid of them. I have the impression that the second possibility will require many changes in dired and dired-aux (and probably in dired-x), all well as changes in `insert-directory' in files.el. Sincerely, Luc.