[BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Hi,

I've spent many frustrating hours cornering this bug.  Here's a short
testcase to reproduce it:

  #!/bin/sh

  cd /tmp
  rm -rf z b
  mkdir z z/a z/b
  echo ha >z/a/file
  ln -s z/b
  cd b
  cat ../a/file
  emacs -Q ../a/file # buffer-file-name = /tmp/a/file

Why doesn't emacs behave like cat or vim?  Isn't this behavior a bad default?

Thanks.

Re: [BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
>   #!/bin/sh
>
>   cd /tmp
>   rm -rf z b
>   mkdir z z/a z/b
>   echo ha >z/a/file
>   ln -s z/b
>   cd b
>   cat ../a/file
>   emacs -Q ../a/file # buffer-file-name = /tmp/a/file
>
> Why doesn't emacs behave like cat or vim?  Isn't this behavior a bad default?

Okay, so expand-file-name defined in src/fileio.c is buggy:

  #!/bin/sh

  cd /tmp
  rm -rf z b
  mkdir z z/a z/b
  ln -s z/b
  cd b
  emacs -Q --batch --eval='(error (expand-file-name "../a"))'
  realpath "../a"

Why such horribly convoluted logic? What could be more straightforward?

https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/abspath.c#L34

Re: [BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[Glenn Morris]

Please note that we have a dedicated bug list. Bugs reported to
emacs-devel have a higher chance of being ignored.
In this case, it sounds like you rediscovered

http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8035

I agree it is sub-optimal.

Re: [BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[Ramkumar Ramachandra]

Glenn Morris wrote:
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8035

Right; last activity in Feb 2011. I'm not interested in reporting
anything: please tell me more about how to fix this bug, and I'll
write the patch now.

Re: [BUG] Not following symlinks by default

[Glenn Morris]

Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

> Right; last activity in Feb 2011. I'm not interested in reporting
> anything: please tell me more about how to fix this bug, and I'll
> write the patch now.

I don't know how. If I did, I'd comment in the bug report.
I encourage anyone who does to do so.