From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [gmane.emacs.bugs] Emacs fails to start properly if the current working directory is on a vfat or ntfs filesystem Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:08 +0100 Message-ID: <85oda71exn.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <877igvl4dn.fsf@stupidchicken.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1203806016 26931 80.91.229.12 (23 Feb 2008 22:33:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:33:36 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Chong Yidong , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Feb 23 23:34:00 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JT2wK-00067Q-Rd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:53 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JT2vo-00035h-QK for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:33:20 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JT2vl-000348-IT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:33:17 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JT2vj-00032K-SR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:33:17 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JT2vj-00032A-O6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:33:15 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-in-11.arcor-online.net ([151.189.21.51]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JT2vf-00013L-Sg; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:33:12 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-in-06-z2.arcor-online.net (mail-in-06-z2.arcor-online.net [151.189.8.18]) by mail-in-11.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 903F4301AD7; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:10 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from mail-in-06.arcor-online.net (mail-in-06.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.46]) by mail-in-06-z2.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E81B5BD63; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:10 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from lola.goethe.zz (dslb-084-061-017-242.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.61.17.242]) by mail-in-06.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E99A35E6AA; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:10 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: by lola.goethe.zz (Postfix, from userid 1002) id 6CC5A1CDBB2E; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:09 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:22:24 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.92.1/5948/Sat Feb 23 19:53:22 2008 on mail-in-06.arcor-online.net X-Virus-Status: Clean X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.4-2.6 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:90170 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii writes: >> From: Chong Yidong >> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:00:52 -0500 >> >> Does anyone here have a vfat/ntfs partition for investigating this bug? > > There's no need to investigate, as the problem is clearly evident: > Windows-based filesystems don't allow certain characters in file > names, and `*' is one of these characters. So a file name such as > `#*scratch*#20913s5z#' is not allowed. > > To properly fix such a problem, Emacs needs to know the type of > filesystem of a file. Then we could employ the same technique as the > Windows port does now, but conditioned by the filesystem, not the OS. > > However, I don't think we have infrastructure for querying the file > about its filesystem type, do we? A similar problem would be filename completion. We have separate code paths for that in Windows/Unix I believe, even though on MacOSX, the file system tends to be case insensitive, too (and normalizing utf-8 composed characters in some manner). If we could design some sort of system call sequence that worked out insensitivity/normalizing agnostic, this would mean that on a typical GNU/Linux system which can mount various foreign file system types, everything would work out according to expectations. That would seem to be preferable to #ifdef and its ilk. I think, however, that stuff like the "\\" directory separator can be system rather than file system dependent. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum