From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#29465: 25.3; Confusing message for dired-do-shell-command substitution Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 17:58:04 +0200 Message-ID: <83vahv67eb.fsf@gnu.org> References: Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1511798364 5643 195.159.176.226 (27 Nov 2017 15:59:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 15:59:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: 29465@debbugs.gnu.org To: Allen Li , Tino Calancha Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 27 16:59:20 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoN-0000fK-J0 for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 16:59:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33406 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoU-0001lQ-UR for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:59:18 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36538) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoI-0001hy-PQ for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:59:13 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoE-00080o-Nc for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:59:06 -0500 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.43]:52426) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoE-00080N-KC for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:59:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLoE-0005Z6-AU for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:59:02 -0500 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Eli Zaretskii Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 15:59:02 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 29465 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs X-GNU-PR-Keywords: Original-Received: via spool by 29465-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B29465.151179830821346 (code B ref 29465); Mon, 27 Nov 2017 15:59:02 +0000 Original-Received: (at 29465) by debbugs.gnu.org; 27 Nov 2017 15:58:28 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:32874 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLnf-0005YE-Um for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:58:28 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:44876) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLnd-0005Y0-Mk for 29465@debbugs.gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:58:25 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLnU-0007J1-DX for 29465@debbugs.gnu.org; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:58:20 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:50668) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLnU-0007Iu-AI; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:58:16 -0500 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2081 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1eJLnT-0006sq-Ha; Mon, 27 Nov 2017 10:58:16 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from Allen Li on Sun, 26 Nov 2017 23:16:59 -0800) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 208.118.235.43 X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "bug-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:140457 Archived-At: > From: Allen Li > Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2017 23:16:59 -0800 > > When you use * or ? in dired-do-shell-command without the intent for > Dired to replace it, you are prompted with > > Confirm--do you mean to use `*' as a wildcard? > > This message is confusing, because there are lots of ways for * to be > passed to the shell without globbing. I am also more familiar with > the term globbing than wildcard, which makes it doubly confusing, for > example if I run > > find ? -name '*.txt' > > I get the message: > > Confirm--do you mean to use `*' as a wildcard? > > What the question is really asking is, should * be passed to the shell > directly, as whether or not it is interpreted as a glob is determined > by the shell and the quoting rules in question. Actually, AFAICT the command wants to ask this: Are you sure you want `*' to be passed to the shell? (as opposed to letting dired-do-shell-command interpret `*' as described in the doc string). > I think this confirmation message should be removed entirely. > > 1. The edge case that it is trying to protect against is not very common. > 2. There is no reasonable behavior that the user could expect from > this edge case. > 3. The documentation string clearly describes how * and ? are interpreted. > 4. The confirmation message is not very informative and is possible misleading. > 5. This confirmation message shows up every time an advanced user > wants to run any command containing * or ?, e.g. for find, grep, sed, > or many other tools. > 6. The confirmation message is not even shown consistently. For > example it is shown for > > find ? -name '*.txt' > > but not for > > find * -name '*.txt' > > Thus, it isn't even useful for protecting against some hypothetical > unwanted behavior. Tino added this confirmation last July, so I will let him defend his change. If we want to remove this confirmation, now is the time, because it wasn't yet released with any Emacs version. Once this confirmation is out at large, it will be much harder to remove it, as that would be an incompatible change.