bug#18851: 24.4; emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 02:28:02 +0100
> From: Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>
> Cc: 18851@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> On 2014-10-28 17:34:59 -0400, Glenn Morris wrote:
> > Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > 
> > > Emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed:
> > 
> > It's easy to change that so that it switches to HOME instead (let's not
> > worry about the case of HOME being missing too!); see patch at end.
> 
> Is there any reason to switch to another directory? Why doesn't
> Emacs just ignore that the current directory has been removed
> (and report errors only when an access to it is really needed)?

Because Emacs needs to pretend to the user that it runs _in_ that
directory, so that relative file names work as you'd expect.

In this regard, Emacs is like the shell.

> Note that the current directory can also be removed after Emacs
> is started, so I expect that Emacs already supports cases like
> that.

No, it does not.  Either the OS leaves the directory in existence
until Emacs exits, or the OS prevents you from removing it.