Re: relative load-file

[Rocky Bernstein <rocky@gnu.org>]

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On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>wrote:

> > When load-file-name is nil,  this uses the name of default directory of
> > current buffer. But that's not the same as the directory of the file
> > containing the load-relative function.
>
> > For example, I could have eval'd a buffer that did a load-relative of a
> file
> > in a different directory. Even without this, I can change the default
> > directory using the cd function. And changing the default directory never
> > changes the file location of the file issuing load-relative.
>
> > Any other thoughts?
>
> You obviously know enough about the problem to "fix it" further
>

Huh? If I knew a good solution to this short of changing the source code, I
*wouldn't* be asking.

(e.g. using buffer-file-name if you prefer it to default-directory).
>

What strikes me wrong about going in the direction of using buffer-file-name
or using buffers is that that we are introspecting about is the running
code.

I just took a look at the src/lread.c and although it is a somewhat bit
mysterious to me, from what I gather from readevalloop (and I could be *very
very* wrong here) is that when a file is read in, perhaps there *is
no*buffer created in the Emacs sense.

Avoiding buffer creation to read in a Lisp file make sense because one wants
reading Lisp code to be fast; furthemore there is no reason to store the
entire source contents as source contents after the file is read/eval'd.
(The vast majority of compilers don't save the source text).

I don't see any point in fixing it further, since there will always be
> corner cases where it doesn't do what the user intended.
>

A couple of things strike me as weird.

First, none of the examples I have given do I find really  corner case.
These and many more have come up. (Recall that I have been using this mode
of working, and I gather from prior remarks you haven't.)

Second, a reason one might try to encapsulate this in a library is to be
able to handle as many of the corner cases as possible so run-of-the-mill
users need not have to be concerned - they can use the feature and have
confidence that it does the right thing.

Thanks for the help.


>
>        Stefan
>

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