Re: require (was: Re: Hooks in minor modes)

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> [2021-05-01 00:55]:
> Jean Louis wrote:
> 
> >> It seems it cannot see the file in its own directory, (push
> >> "." load-path) don't help it seems...?
> >
> > If you just push "." to load-path that may cause every
> > future current directory to be the load-path
> 
> "May cause", isn't that the intention and what's wrong
> with that?

If I do (push "." load-path) then maybe I did that in ~/ directory,
where I expect to find my-library.el and when I switch to ~/tmp
directory and try to load my-library.el it would not work as now "."
is inside of ~/tmp and not ~/

> I have . first in the shell PATH as well to execute scripts
> there quickly, but also to give precedence if some binary
> somewhere deep in the system has the same name.

Maybe good, I just don't put executables everywhere, so I never had
"." in my life in the shell PATH. Sure is working if you need it.

It is not similar to "." in load-path in Emacs.

> > , imagine that require would not work depending of the
> > current directory.
> 
> What do you mean, when that file is byte-compiled, isn't the
> current directory that of that file, i.e. just where it should
> look first to require stuff? Or it doesn't work like that, you
> mean? Or what do you mean? I don't understand what you mean.
> 
> > It is better to expand "."
> >
> > (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name "."))
> 
> OK, it is better to expand ".", whatever that means, because
> of ______ (please insert reason)

I think you are joking, but maybe I am confused... who knows.

Is it well enough explained above?

If you just add "." that means current directory, and in Emacs you can
easily switch current directory. For example if you look for file in
some directory, the current directory is changed. If library you look
for was in "." when you were in ~/ directory, you will not be able to
load that library if you switch current directory to some other
location.

I have tried and it does not work. "." if not expanded to actual
directory such as ~/tmp will not help in loading files from ~/tmp as
"." alone does not know it is ~/tmp, as it points to whatever current
directory is currently.



-- 
Jean

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