rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

When I invoke rmail for the first time in a session, I get an error from movemail:
<quote src="*Messages*">

Loading rmail...done
Counting messages...done
movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -
Getting mail from the remote server ...
Converting to Babyl format...40
Counting new messages...
Counting messages...40
Counting new messages...done (47)
Saving file /home/eddy/mail/pending/primary...
Wrote /home/eddy/mail/pending/primary
47 new messages read
Loading rmime...done

</quote> Everything works fine despite that, but clearly something's
amiss.  C-h a movemail RET got me no responses and I can't see
anything in my rmail config that obviously sets something to - or --
(I can't tell from the message which is the problem), so I'm
entertaining the delusion that the problem isn't something I
configured for an old version of emacs, that's wrong for the new
version.


In GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2007-07-07 on raven, modified by Debian
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.10300000
configured using `configure  '--build=i486-linux-gnu' '--host=i486-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var/lib' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes' '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs22:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/22.1/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/22.1/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/22.1/leim' '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=athena' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars' 'build_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -g -O2''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_GB.ISO-8859-15
  locale-coding-system: iso-8859-15
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: RMAIL

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
  utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t

Recent input:
<return> C-x o C-x b <return> C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-SPC C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n M-w M-> M-x b u r <return> 
C-y C-x o M-x r e p o <tab> r <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
Counting messages...40
Counting new messages...done (47)
Saving file /home/eddy/mail/pending/primary...
Wrote /home/eddy/mail/pending/primary
47 new messages read
Loading rmime...done
Mark set [3 times]
Making completion list...
Loading help-mode...done
Loading emacsbug...done

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Glenn Morris]

Edward Welbourne wrote:

> Loading rmail...done
> Counting messages...done
> movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -
> Getting mail from the remote server ...

I did:

emacs -q --no-site-file
(setq rmail-primary-inbox-list '("pop://username:password@hostname"))
M-x rmail

and I did not see any such error. So please can you show the minimum
settings needed to produce the error. The values of the following
variables might also be of interest:

rmail-movemail-program
rmail-movemail-flags
rmail-movemail-variant-in-use

also the result of evaluating the function

rmail-autodetect

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

> please can you show the minimum settings needed to produce the error.

I'll see what I can find, but not immediately - my mail-box is
currently locked by *this* emacs session ...

> The values of the following variables might also be of interest:

> rmail-movemail-program
"/usr/bin/movemail"
> rmail-movemail-flags
nil
> rmail-movemail-variant-in-use
mailutils

> also the result of evaluating the function

> (rmail-autodetect)
mailutils

of which my installed version is <quote src="dpkg -s mailutils">

Version: 1:1.1+dfsg1-3.1

</quote>

More later, when I've caught up with the week-end's mail,

	Eddy.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

> I did:

> emacs -q --no-site-file
> (setq rmail-primary-inbox-list '("pop://username:password@hostname"))
> M-x rmail

I managed simpler: <quote>

emacs -q --no-site-file
M-x rmail

</quote> and reproduced the error !
So I'll hazard a guess that your movemail variant is emacs and my
problem is actually incompatibility with the mailutils one.  Here's
the whole of my *Messages* buffer for that session: <quote>

("emacs" "-q" "--no-site-file")
For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
Loading rmail...done
(New file)
Counting messages...done
movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -
(No new mail has arrived)

</quote>

	Eddy.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Andreas Schwab]

Edward Welbourne <eddy@opera.com> writes:

> movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -

What does (list (rmail-autodetect) rmail-movemail-program) return?

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
PGP key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

>> movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -

> What does (list (rmail-autodetect) rmail-movemail-program) return?

(mailutils "/usr/bin/movemail")

	Eddy.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Glenn Morris]

Edward Welbourne wrote:

> </quote> and reproduced the error !
> So I'll hazard a guess that your movemail variant is emacs and my
> problem is actually incompatibility with the mailutils one. 

I did try with the mailutils package installed, but still got no
error. I do see a way this might happen though. Could you try this
patch please (don't forget to re-byte-compile rmail.el):


*** rmail.el	8 Aug 2007 07:18:14 -0000	1.433.2.4
--- rmail.el	20 Aug 2007 20:00:10 -0000
***************
*** 1818,1826 ****
  		 (buffer-disable-undo errors)
  		 (let ((args
  			(append
! 			 (list (or rmail-movemail-program
! 				   (expand-file-name "movemail"
! 						     exec-directory))
  			       nil errors nil)
  			 (if rmail-preserve-inbox
  			     (list "-p")
--- 1818,1828 ----
  		 (buffer-disable-undo errors)
  		 (let ((args
  			(append
! 			 (list (progn
! 				 ;; Call for effect, to set r-m-variant-in-use
! 				 ;; and possibly r-m-program.
! 				 (rmail-movemail-variant-p)
! 				 rmail-movemail-program)
  			       nil errors nil)
  			 (if rmail-preserve-inbox
  			     (list "-p")

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

> Could you try this patch please

As a preliminary test, I started emacs -q --no-site-file
copied (rmail-movemail-variant-p)
into *scratch* and C-x C-e'd it, then M-x rmail
worked without the error, strongly supporting the hypothesis that
calling this for its side-effects is just what's needed :-)

Then I became root and patched the file.

> (don't forget to re-byte-compile rmail.el):
<quote>
\f
Compiling file /usr/share/emacs/22.1/lisp/mail/rmail.el at Tue Aug 21 12:08:21 2007

In end of data:
rmail.el:4259:1:Warning: the following functions are not known to be defined:
    rmail-spam-filter, rmail-update-summary, rmail-summary-goto-msg,
    rmail-summary-mark-undeleted, rmail-summary-mark-deleted,
    rfc822-addresses, mail-text-start, mail-abbrev-make-syntax-table,
    mail-sendmail-delimit-header, mail-header-end,
    mail-position-on-field
</quote>

and now a fresh emacs -q --no-site-file can M-x rmail without problems :-)

Thanks, that looks like the fix that's needed,

	Eddy.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

> Could you try this patch please

As a preliminary test, I started emacs -q --no-site-file
copied (rmail-movemail-variant-p)
into *scratch* and C-x C-e'd it, then M-x rmail
worked without the error, strongly supporting the hypothesis that
calling this for its side-effects is just what's needed :-)

Then I became root and patched the file.

> (don't forget to re-byte-compile rmail.el):
<quote>
\f
Compiling file /usr/share/emacs/22.1/lisp/mail/rmail.el at Tue Aug 21 12:08:21 2007

In end of data:
rmail.el:4259:1:Warning: the following functions are not known to be defined:
    rmail-spam-filter, rmail-update-summary, rmail-summary-goto-msg,
    rmail-summary-mark-undeleted, rmail-summary-mark-deleted,
    rfc822-addresses, mail-text-start, mail-abbrev-make-syntax-table,
    mail-sendmail-delimit-header, mail-header-end,
    mail-position-on-field
</quote>

and now a fresh emacs -q --no-site-file can M-x rmail without problems :-)

Thanks, that looks like the fix that's needed,

	Eddy.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Glenn Morris]

Edward Welbourne wrote:

> Thanks, that looks like the fix that's needed,

Thanks for testing it; I installed a slightly different version that
has the same effect.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Richard Stallman]

    I managed simpler: <quote>

    emacs -q --no-site-file
    M-x rmail

    </quote> and reproduced the error !

    So I'll hazard a guess that your movemail variant is emacs and my
    problem is actually incompatibility with the mailutils one.  Here's
    the whole of my *Messages* buffer for that session: <quote>

Can you use the debugger to determine precisely what options
Emacs passes to movemail?  You could do debug-on-entry
for call-process.

Re: rmail passing movemail an option it doesn't like

[Edward Welbourne]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3085 bytes --]

> Can you use the debugger to determine precisely what options
> Emacs passes to movemail?  You could do debug-on-entry
> for call-process.

<buffer name="*Backtrace*">
Debugger entered--entering a function:
* call-process("/usr/bin/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*<2>> nil "--version")
  rmail-probe("/usr/bin/movemail")
  byte-code("Æ\b	\nC#Ç^[‰\x1cƒF
!„>
!ƒ>
!‰\x1e\x10ƒ=
\x16\x11ÎÏ\x0e\x10\"ˆ))\fA‰\x14„

  rmail-autodetect()
  rmail-movemail-variant-p(mailutils)
  rmail-insert-inbox-text(("/var/mail/eddy") t)
  rmail-get-new-mail()
  rmail()
  call-interactively(rmail)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)
</buffer>

When I invoke movemail --version manually, I get 
movemail (GNU Mailutils 1.1)

After a while I guessed to type c to make the debugger continue, which
seems to be what it did, and it hit the break-point again:

<buffer name="*Backtrace*">
Debugger entered--returning value: 0
  call-process("/usr/bin/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*<2>> nil "--version")
  rmail-probe("/usr/bin/movemail")
  byte-code("Æ\b	\nC#Ç^[‰\x1cƒF
!„>
!ƒ>
!‰\x1e\x10ƒ=
\x16\x11ÎÏ\x0e\x10\"ˆ))\fA‰\x14„

  rmail-autodetect()
  rmail-movemail-variant-p(mailutils)
  rmail-insert-inbox-text(("/var/mail/eddy") t)
  rmail-get-new-mail()
  rmail()
  call-interactively(rmail)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)
</buffer>

and then c again:

<buffer name="*Backtrace*">
Debugger entered--entering a function:
* call-process("/usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*> nil "--emacs" "/var/mail/eddy" "/disk/home/eddy/.newmail-eddy")
  apply(call-process ("/usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*> nil "--emacs" "/var/mail/eddy" "/disk/home/eddy/.newmail-eddy"))
  rmail-insert-inbox-text(("/var/mail/eddy") t)
  rmail-get-new-mail()
  rmail()
  call-interactively(rmail)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)
</buffer>

and again:

<buffer name="*Backtrace*">
Debugger entered--returning value: 1
  call-process("/usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*> nil "--emacs" "/var/mail/eddy" "/disk/home/eddy/.newmail-eddy")
  apply(call-process ("/usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail" nil #<buffer  *temp*> nil "--emacs" "/var/mail/eddy" "/disk/home/eddy/.newmail-eddy"))
  rmail-insert-inbox-text(("/var/mail/eddy") t)
  rmail-get-new-mail()
  rmail()
  call-interactively(rmail)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)
</buffer>

after which I got the error,

<buffer name="*Messages*">
("emacs" "-q" "--no-site-file")
For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
Loading debug...done
Loading rmail...done
(New file)
Counting messages...done
Entering debugger...
Loading help-mode...done
Mark set [3 times]
Continuing.
Entering debugger...
Mark set
Continuing.
Entering debugger...
Mark set [2 times]
Continuing.
Entering debugger...
Mark set
Continuing.
movemail: /usr/lib/emacs/22.1/i486-linux-gnu/movemail: invalid option -- -
(No new mail has arrived)
</buffer>

	Eddy.