GNU bug report logs - #18515
Document call-process behaviour with respect to default-directory

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From: Eli Barzilay <eli <at> barzilay.org>
To: 18515 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#18515: 24.3; Documentation of `call-process'
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:20:22 -0400

The documentation of `call-process' doesn't say anything about which
directory the process is started at, or the fact that it switches to
the directory in some way.

As the example that I ran into, I setq `ring-bell-function' in my
environment so it plays a nice ding.  In some cases the dings didn't
play at all, or played after a huge delay etc.  Since this is running
in a VM, I "obviously" concluded that something bad with the sound
driver configuration happened, and went on a wild chase that lead to
nothing.

Eventually, I noticed that the delay happens only when I have a file
open over sshfs -- and then I wrapped the `call-process' with a
(let ((default-directory "/")) ...) and all is well.  A note about
switching to the directory in the documentation of `call-process', or
even just a mention of the directory in which it runs could have saved
me that chase...

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!

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