GNU bug report logs - #2062
PATH can contain non-expanded variables

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From: Juanma Barranquero <lekktu <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 2062 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, jasonr <at> f2s.com
Subject: bug#2062: PATH can contain non-expanded variables
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:55:09 +0100

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 20:30, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> wrote:

> What was the use-case that caused Path to include unexpanded
> environment variables in your case?

In *my* case, I run several instances of Emacs, and I put different
binaries (image libraries, etc.) in several directories, pointed to by
one environment variable. I always start Emacs from the command line,
and I set the environment variable according to which Emacs I want to
run and what additional binaries to use. I have the App Path set to
C:\emacs\%myvar%\bin, where %myvar% points to the relevant dir.

But my use case is not important: there are many ways to do what I do,
and I'm not even claiming mine is optimal, or close to it.

If I want to fix that (or work around it, if it is a Windows bug) is
because certainly there's nothing precluding the user from setting a
REG_EXPAND_SZ for PATH, or EMACSPATH or EMACSLOADPATH, and there seems
to be no downside to this change, unless we deem
C:\this\is%myweird%path\to\file likely.

But this does not merit too long a discussion IMO. Either you (all)
think it's useful, or hackish. Your call.

    Juanma

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