GNU bug report logs - #33339
26; doc string of `write-file`

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>

Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2018 22:43:01 UTC

Severity: minor

Done: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 26; doc string of `write-file`
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2018 14:42:16 -0800 (PST)
 "If you specify just a directory name as FILENAME, that means to use
  the default file name but in that directory.  You can also yank
  the default file name into the minibuffer to edit it, using M-n."

"The default file name" is undefined.  How is a user to know what we
mean?  It turns out that in this particular case what we mean is this:

(file-name-nondirectory (or buffer-file-name (buffer-name)))

Not obvious from the description.

To start with, the doc string should say that it prompts for a file
name.  If the current buffer is visiting a file then that file's name is
the default file name for reading.  Otherwise the buffer name is the
default file name for reading.

The last part could be more exact.  The default name in that case is
actually this:

 (expand-file-name (file-name-nondirectory (buffer-name))
                   default-directory) 

In GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32)
 of 2018-05-30
Repository revision: 07f8f9bc5a51f5aa94eb099f3e15fbe0c20ea1ea
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.16299
Configured using:
 `configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
 --without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3''




This bug report was last modified 6 years and 193 days ago.

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