Subject: bug#31489: 25.3; Dired unable to open directory "/ssh:example.com"

From: Michael Albinus <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 20:10:08 +0200

Christoph Michelbach <[email-masked]> writes:

Hi Christoph,

> After applying your patch, I can enter the directory with the SSH
> resource name by hitting enter on it if and only if I start at "/:".

Of course. Otherwise, you would try to open "/ssh:example.com:", which is
a Tramp file name.

> If this didn't work thus far, it's probably a bad idea to force people
> to start at "/:" instead of "/".

Meanwhile, I don't believe it is the way to go. If you enter the
directory "/:/ssh:example.com:/", and want to access any file there, none
of the file name handlers would work due to the quoting with "/:". Even
uncompressing a file on the fly doesn't work, like /:/ssh:example.com:/file.gz".

This is not what we want. We want just to hinder Tramp taking care of
"/ssh:example.com:". If you don't use Tramp at all, set `tramp-mode' to
nil in your .emacs. Everything shall work then as expected. This shall
work also with older Emacsen, like 25.3.

If you plan to still use Tramp, tell me so. I will add a variable then,
where you could give a regexp for file names to be ignored by Tramp, like
"\\`/ssh:example\\.com:".

I will use bug#31489 to continue the work on the bug it has uncovered:
If there is a magic function with two file name arguments, and the first
argument is quoted with "/:", then *both* arguments are handled like
they were quoted. Something like (copy-file "/:/ssh:example.com/file"
"/sudo::/etc/file") won't work anymore.

Best regards, Michael.