Subject: Re: bug#44822: 27.1; Regression in `ffap-read-file-or-url'

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2021 12:47:36 -0400

Lars Ingebrigtsen [2021-07-31 14:48:15] wrote:
> Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:
>> Thierry and Stefan, these changes seem to have been done by you.  Can
>> you please take a look at this issue? 
> I don't understand the changes either.
> With (ffap-read-file-or-url "Url: " nil) it's now currently impossible
> to enter an URL after this change:
>
> commit 8685db187b891bcadcf61e41dea3124e4c45b7d4
> Author:     Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
> AuthorDate: Sat Nov 9 13:32:20 2019 -0500
>
>     * lisp/ffap.el (ffap-read-file-or-url): Don't use url-file-handler
>
> Stefan?

Hmm... the motivation for the change is described in the comment:

      ;; FIXME: We earlier tried to make use of `url-file-handler' so
      ;; `read-file-name' could also be used for URLs, but it
      ;; introduced all kinds of subtle breakage such as:
      ;; - (file-name-directory "http://a") returning "http://a/"
      ;; - Trying to contact remote hosts with no justification
      ;; These should be fixed in url-handler-mode before we can try
      ;; using it here again.

Maybe the cure is worse than the disease,

        Stefan