From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [jidanni@jidanni.org: Re: find-grep makes raw terminal ANSI] Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:14:35 +0200 Message-ID: References: <853av4pfao.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1195359298 17802 80.91.229.12 (18 Nov 2007 04:14:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:14:58 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Nov 18 05:15:03 2007 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 1ItbYk-00087k-OQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:15:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ItbYX-0001Fq-Bu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:14:49 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ItbYS-0001Dq-UI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:14:44 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ItbYR-0001DS-7D for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:14:44 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ItbYR-0001DL-3k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:14:43 -0500 Original-Received: from romy.inter.net.il ([213.8.233.24]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1ItbYM-0007DR-TE; Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:14:39 -0500 Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 (IGLD-80-230-162-3.inter.net.il [80.230.162.3]) by romy.inter.net.il (MOS 3.7.3-GA) with ESMTP id JKS47131 (AUTH halo1); Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:14:20 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: <853av4pfao.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> (message from David Kastrup on Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:29:03 +0100) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.7-5.2 (or MacOS X 10.2-10.4) (2) 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:83514 Archived-At: > From: David Kastrup > Cc: "Drew Adams" , emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:29:03 +0100 > > > setenv doesn't change user's environment, it changes the environment > > passed to inferior processes. > > My first reaction to this was "Huh?". You misunderstood what Drew was asking, and thus my response. He was asking about the environment used by Emacs itself. In general, `setenv' changes the environment of the program that calls it, but in the case in point it isn't so. > In UNIX, where the environment > concept originated, it is _exclusively_ something which is passed to > inferior processes, quite like command line arguments. > > It is only when coming from an MSDOS background (which tended to > implement UNIX concepts badly or incompletely, and so had something like > a global environment, and pipes implemented with intermediate files of > arbitrary size and other things close, but not identical to the real > thing) that something like a global "user's environment" concept does > even exist. This rethoric is misplaced: there's no difference between Unix and MS-DOS in this regard: both have separate environment for each process, and on both systems a program can only legitimately change its own environment, which is then copied to the children processes. It cannot change the environment of the parent process (except by writing to its memory, which I don't consider a legitimate behavior). Unlike what you seem to think, there's no "global" environment on MS-DOS.