Subject: bug#5478: 23.1.91; Cannot use dired with cons DIRNAME arg if include remote files

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:40:15 -0800

emacs -Q

I load these two files:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/cygwin-mount.el
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/setup-cygwin.el

I use ftp as `tramp-default-method' (I gave up trying to use Tramp with
ssh on Windows).

But probably none of that is important. What follows is what matters.

M-: (dired '("foo" A B))

where A is an (absolute) remote file name and B is an (absolute) local
file name.  For example, A could be
"/zizi.bar.toto.com:/some/path/titi.el", and B could be
"c:/another/path/tata.el".

The Dired buffer that results shows file B normally:
it is correctly listed using its absolute file name.
The buffer is correctly named "foo".

The listing shows file A incorrectly, however. It shows A as a relative
file name, instead of showing it as an absolute, remote file name. IOW,
the remote directory information is lost.

And hitting RET on A's line in Dired raises this error: "File no longer
exists; type `g' to update dired buffer".  That message is
inappropriate, obviously.  And `g' does not help.

This is really too bad.  It is _very_ convenient to use Dired with an
explicit list of files, e.g. files from different directories.  It would
be especially convenient to be able to mix local and remote files this
way.

And according to the Dired doc, this should work.  It almost does.  In
fact, the file line for the remote file is otherwise correct - e.g. the
date/time, permissions, etc.  The only problem seems to be that the
directory itself is missing: the file name is displayed as a relative
name.  If it were displayed as absolute, I'm guessing it would work 100%.

In GNU Emacs 23.1.91.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2010-01-02 on PRETEST
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4)'