On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 6:29 AM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>wrote:

> > GNU_NODE_EXCLUDE is useful if some directory is mounted with the same...
>
> Could you point to some origin for this mechanism?
> Googling only seems to point to this current thread and to some
> gnuclient stuff.


I was not aware of any other documentation than this, but searching google
groups turned up this link:

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs/browse_thread/thread/dcb0343a012b69dc/86931742d045b117?q=GNU_NODE#86931742d045b117

to a posting from 1989 that is, I believe, the origin of the implementation
in xemacs.

My understanding is that gnuclient uses four environment variables to
control the way that it connects to the server:

GNU_PORT and GNU_HOST to identify the location of the server
GNU_SECURE for authorization
GNU_NODE (as described in this thread).

As you probably know, emacsclient is different in that it uses a single file
in .emacs.d/server to identify the server's location, and for authorization,
I believe.

On my machine this file looks like this:

127.0.0.1:41055 15289
R`HIRQ;aQxEG.U7.u.VExqpQLga@4kL4h_xH|'n1",)SBf:1<Cu('ad1kIi1=yqZ


I considered using a more descriptive name than GNU_NODE
(EMACSCLIENT_PREFIX?) but ended up with GNU_NODE just for compatibility,
although given all the other differences the compatibility argument for
doing things this way is not very strong.

Is gnuclient the only other program using such
> a convention?
>

I think so.  I'm not aware of any other program that uses GNU_NODE in this
(or any other) way.  The idea and the environment variable name were
entirely inspired by gnuclient in my case.  GNU_NODE_EXCLUDE is, to my
knowledge, a new extension.

-Hugh


>        Stefan
>