From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: file-exists-p on empty string Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:18:48 -0500 Message-ID: References: <6C8B93F1-4549-4223-AD3D-58A8CF28A97C@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="214516"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Feb 27 22:20:21 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6cn-000tg8-9v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:20:21 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:50797 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6cm-0007nz-79 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:20:20 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:47852) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6bc-0007jB-4T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:19:08 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6ba-00035o-Qz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:19:07 -0500 Original-Received: from [195.159.176.226] (port=54986 helo=blaine.gmane.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6ba-0002zl-If for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:19:06 -0500 Original-Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1gz6bN-000rwp-CG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:18:53 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Cancel-Lock: sha1:EEk7PyqF55w9KQIotclix3R+83c= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 195.159.176.226 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:233679 Archived-At: >> So the (not (string-empty-p fn)) test just reflects the tool's semantics >> and is not an artifact of some suboptimal behavior of file-exists-p. > I gree, but there is not a line about empty strings in doc-string. > It is great that this is mentioned in documentation, but anyway > behaviour was quite unexpected The problem is that docstrings describe the behavior of a specific function, so they usually don't mention the more general aspects that affect all functions of a given subsystem, such as here the general treatment of the empty string when used as a file name. Otherwise, every file-name-manipulating function would have to repeat this information in its docstring. Stefan