GNU bug report logs - #75946
[PATCH] Avoid infinite questions if TAGS file was removed

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Konstantin Kharlamov <Hi-Angel <at> yandex.ru>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 75946 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#75946: [PATCH] Avoid infinite questions if TAGS file was removed
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:44:31 +0300

On Thu, 2025-01-30 at 17:37 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Konstantin Kharlamov <Hi-Angel <at> yandex.ru>
> > Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:16:13 +0300
> >
> > When the visited TAGS file was removed, commands that depend on
> > TAGS
> > such as auto-completion may invoke an interactive question whether
> > a
> > user wants to re-read the file.  From that point on, the question
> > will
> > be asked over and over, because the file no longer exists, which
> > results in mtime mismatch and inability to "fix the mismatch" by
> > reading from the file.  Fix that by simply ignoring the mismatch if
> > the file no longer exists.
>
> Thanks, but can you please show a recipe, starting from "emacs -Q",
> which could be used to reproduce this problem?

Sure. Idk of any Emacs tags auto-completion functions, but I don't it's particularly
important in the context. I use below a `(tags-completion-table)` instead.

1. Create empty tags `touch /tmp/TAGS`
2. Launch Emacs with `emacs -Q --eval '(visit-tags-table "/tmp/TAGS")'`
3. Remove the tags: `rm /tmp/TAGS`
4. In Emacs evaluate `(tags-completion-table)`

You'll get the question if you want to re-read from TAGS file, and disregarding
whether you reply "yes" or "no", each time you execute `(tags-completion-table)`
again you'll get the prompt again and again.

In autocompletion context it results in complete inability type text, because the
user gets spammed by the prompt on every letter.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.