GNU bug report logs - #29465
25.3; Confusing message for dired-do-shell-command substitution

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Message #41 received at 29465 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Allen Li <vianchielfaura <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 29465 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>,
 Tino Calancha <tino.calancha <at> gmail.com>
Subject: Re: bug#29465: 25.3;
 Confusing message for dired-do-shell-command substitution
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 22:31:03 -0800

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 12:36 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2017 20:20:38 -0800 (PST)
>> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
>> Cc: 29465 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Tino Calancha <tino.calancha <at> gmail.com>
>>
>> IF we feel it helps a user to prompt about something,
>> and IF we feel there is a possibility that some users
>> might not understand the prompt, in spite of our best
>> efforts to come up with a good prompt, and IF we feel
>> that understanding the prompt is important, THEN the
>> doc string should make clear whatever it is that it
>> is important that users understand about that prompting.
>>
>> It's quite possible for a user not to understand even
>> a good prompt.  S?he should be able to get the point
>> by doing `C-h f', in that case.
>
> The doc string already attempts to do that:
>
>   `*' and `?' when not surrounded by whitespace nor `\\=`' have no special
>   significance for `dired-do-shell-command', and are passed through
>   normally to the shell, but you must confirm first.
>
> We could make the intent of the confirmation even more clear, e.g.
>
>   `*' and `?' when not surrounded by whitespace nor `\\=`' have no special
>   significance for `dired-do-shell-command', and are passed through
>   normally to the shell, but you must confirm first, to avoid
>   inadvertently passing a wildcard to a shell command, which would cause
>   that command to act on more files than you intended.
>
> Is anything else needed to make this prompt's intent more clear?

I made some small changes to the docstring and I added an option for
disabling the prompt, in two separate patches against master.  I have
attached the patches.

Since I don't have a good idea for the prompt text itself, I fixed
these two issues first.

Aside: is there a recommended way of formatting and sending patches?
What's easiest for me is using git format-patch and then attaching the
files, but I don't know if Emacs maintainers prefer anything specific
(e.g. mail readers that don't support MIME attachments?)

[0001-Clarify-dired-do-shell-command-docstring.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

[0002-Add-option-for-controlling-dired-do-shell-command-pr.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

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