Subject: bug#10489: 24.0.92; dired-do-copy may create infinite directory hierarchy

From: Michael Albinus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:29:28 +0100

Juanma Barranquero <[email-masked]> writes:

> That is true, but it's also likely true* that simple, and file-name
> comparisons are used in the Emacs sources. So perhaps we should limit
> file-name-equal-p to local files, and assume that there's no reliable
> way to compare them if the files are remote.

Simple cases would be possible, therefore I'm for a file name handler
implemented in Tramp. It could expand default method, user names and
host names. It could massage the hostname (downcase all hostnames,
canonicalize them if possible (for example "127.0.0.1" and "::1" and
"localhost" could all be mapped to (system-name))). It could fiddle with
file name case sensitvity (it might be different on your local Windows
machine and your remote GNU/Linux machine). It could know which methods
are equal when it comes to file name comparison. ("ssh" and "scp" are
equal in this way). And so on.

There will still be cases Tramp returns "not equal", but we would catch
the majority of use cases, I believe.

> Juanma

Best regards, Michael.