Subject: 29.3; recentf cd inconsistency

From: Rustom Mody <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2025 18:39:25 +0530

When I use recentf to remember files I've used in earlier emacs sessions
along with cd, there's an inconsistency:

cd history (with uparrow or M-p) fetches ordinary files and
directories indiscriminately. Selecting a non-directory file gives "no
match".

I'd prefer
1. (Ideal) A separate dir history from file history
2. Or else the dirname of files in the file history unique-ified

Notes:
1. This is about history (uparrow/M-p) not expansion (TAB)
2. I asked about this on emacs stackexchange and there were some
interesting responses: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/83542/5223
3. This is a minor bug in itself but its severity is increased (for me) by
the extant old bug #75703 (29.3 Lose mouse controls) because I prefer to
navigate directories in
bash and then jump into emacs(client) from there but 75703 makes it too
painful so I end up (wanting to) use cd command of emacs more and then this
surfaces

In GNU Emacs 29.3 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.41,
 cairo version 1.18.0) of 2024-04-01, modified by Debian built on
 lcy02-amd64-083
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12302006
System Description: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

Configured using:
 'configure --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --with-cairo --with-x=yes
 --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-toolkit-scroll-bars 'CFLAGS=-g -O2
 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer
 -ffile-prefix-map=/build/emacs-0yuuFP/emacs-29.3+1=.
-fstack-protector-strong
 -fstack-clash-protection -Wformat -Werror=format-security
 -fcf-protection
 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/emacs-0yuuFP/emacs-29.3+1=/usr/src/emacs-1:29.3+1-1ubuntu2
 -Wall' 'CPPFLAGS=-Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro''

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES
NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP X11 XDBE XIM XINPUT2
XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Fundamental

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068
epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail
rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils comp comp-cstr
warnings subr-x rx cl-seq cl-macs gv cl-extra help-mode bytecomp
byte-compile cus-edit pp cus-start cus-load icons wid-edit cl-loaddefs
cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify
ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win
term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit xinput2 x multi-tty
make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 102312 8252)When I use recentf to remember files Ive used in
earlier emacs sessions
along with cd, there's an obvious inconsistency:

cd history (with uparrow or M-p) fetches ordinary files and
directories indiscriminately. Selecting a non-directory file gives no
match.

Notes:
1. This is about history (uparrow/M-p) not expansion (TAB)
2. I asked about this on emacs stackexchange and there were some
interesting responses: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/83542/5223
3. The severity of this bug is increased (for me) by the extant old bug
#75703
(29.3 Lose mouse controls) because I prefer to navigate directories in
bash and then jump into emacs(client) from there but 75703 makes it too
painful

In GNU Emacs 29.3 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.41,
 cairo version 1.18.0) of 2024-04-01, modified by Debian built on
 lcy02-amd64-083
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12302006
System Description: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

Configured using:
 'configure --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --build x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr
 --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-libsystemd --with-pop=yes
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/29.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --with-sound=alsa --without-gconf --with-mailutils
 --with-native-compilation --with-cairo --with-x=yes
 --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-toolkit-scroll-bars 'CFLAGS=-g -O2
 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer
 -ffile-prefix-map=/build/emacs-0yuuFP/emacs-29.3+1=.
-fstack-protector-strong
 -fstack-clash-protection -Wformat -Werror=format-security
 -fcf-protection
 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/emacs-0yuuFP/emacs-29.3+1=/usr/src/emacs-1:29.3+1-1ubuntu2
 -Wall' 'CPPFLAGS=-Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro''

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES
NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP X11 XDBE XIM XINPUT2
XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Fundamental

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068
epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail
rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils comp comp-cstr
warnings subr-x rx cl-seq cl-macs gv cl-extra help-mode bytecomp
byte-compile cus-edit pp cus-start cus-load icons wid-edit cl-loaddefs
cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify
ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win
term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit xinput2 x multi-tty
make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 102312 8252)
 (symbols 48 8853 0)
 (strings 32 23365 1404)
 (string-bytes 1 683823)
 (vectors 16 16540)
 (vector-slots 8 342703 11171)
 (floats 8 45 37)
 (intervals 56 290 0)
 (buffers 984 12))

 (symbols 48 8853 0)
 (strings 32 23365 1404)
 (string-bytes 1 683823)
 (vectors 16 16540)
 (vector-slots 8 342703 11171)
 (floats 8 45 37)
 (intervals 56 290 0)
 (buffers 984 12))