Subject: bug#57102: 29.0.50; Peculiar file-name-split edge case

From: Philip Kaludercic <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2022 16:29:15 +0000

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> How sensible is this in the first place?  Shouldn't it rather be
>> something like
>>
>> (file-equal-p (apply #'file-name-concat (file-name-split filename)) filename)
>>
>> [ which is currently likewise not given ]
>>
>> Or to put it differently, who does the preceding empty string benefit if
>> we ignore the condition mentioned in the docstring?  Are there any
>> real-world use-cases?
>
> You need to be able to tell (file-name-split "a/b") => ("a" "b") and
> (file-name-split "/a/b") => ("" "a" "b") apart.

Could one instead prefix the list with a symbol (either `absolute' or
`relative') to distinguish the two cases.  Or do you think that would
just make it more complicated.