Subject: bug#54191: [External] : Re: bug#54191: 26.3; (elisp) `Magic File Names' FILENAME parameters: absolute names?

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 17:22:09 +0000

> > > Did you follow the cross-reference?  Because there you'd find the
> > > answer to your question, loud and clear.
> >
> > I don't think it does.  No mention of absolute or
> > relative in that node.
> 
> It _shows_ them.

I don't see any showing of a relative file name.
Can you point to one there?

> > And it's not just about `file-remote-p'.  The
> > problem is more general, as reported.  And the
> > general problem involves doc strings and manual.
> 
> There's no more general problem here.

FILENAME in `Remote Files'
FILENAME and FILE in `Magic File Names'
FILENAME in `Visiting Functions'
FILENAME in `Subroutines of Visiting'
FILENAME in `Saving Buffers'
FILENAME in `Reading from Files'
FILENAME in `Writing to Files'
FILENAME and FILE in `File Locks'
...
and so on - lots of places.

Similarly, doc strings of functions that
accept file-name args.  It's _not_ obvious
what the behavior is.

And yes, some functions do automatically
apply `expand-file-name' to a FILE(NAME) arg.

The question of whether a function does that,
and more generally how a function handles a
relative vs absolute file-name arg, is not
nothing.