Re: emacs.exe --load FILE and current directory on w32

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> I get the same behavior on GNU/Linux, both with the current CVS and
>
>with Emacs 21.3.
>
>I think Emacs always behaved like that.  The manual is simplifying a
>bit: you will see in startup.el that we try to find the file in the
>_default_ directory; if we visited a file before processing -l, that
>is no longer the current directory, but rather the directory of the
>visited file.  I'm not sure this subtlety needs to be documented,
>except, perhaps in a footnote.
>
Info says:

`-l FILE'
`--load=FILE'
     Load a Lisp library named FILE with the function `load'.  *Note
     Lisp Libraries::.  If FILE is not an absolute file name, the
     library can be found either in the current directory, or in the
     Emacs library search path as specified with `EMACSLOADPATH' (*note
     General Variables::).

I think "current directory" in this context must mean the current 
directory for the program starting Emacs.

I would say that the preffered way to work would be just that. The 
current behaviour is unexpected and confusing. load-library does not 
search Emacs current directory. Then why should the --load startup 
argument do that?

However what is preferred to do in this situation is another thing. 
Maybe just change it to something like:

     FILE is not an absolute file name, the library can be found either in
     Emacs current directory, or in the Emacs library search path as
     specified with `EMACSLOADPATH' (*note General Variables::).

     Note: Emacs current directory might be different from the current
     directory in the context where Emacs is invoked. This will be the
     case when for example a file to visit is found before --load on
     the command line.

But I think it is rather ugly and I do not know if it is correct. Must 
the file to visit be before --load? This subtle difficulties could be 
avoided if the behaviour was changed.