Re: [Elisp-code-dired] Dired 7.16 bug: dired.el conflicts with :file specs for image specifiers

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Michael Sperber writes:
 > 
 > "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden> writes:
 > 
 > > David Kastrup claims in <address@hidden> on
 > > xemacs-beta:
 > >
 > >     I think it is still impossible to use a :file specification for
 > >     image specifiers of binary formats (jpg, png and binary pnm
 > >     formats) in XEmacs once you have loaded dired.el.  So you have to

 > > I haven't replicated myself, but he's usually a trustworthy observer
 > > although a PITA to work with.
 > 
 > Do you have the slightest idea what he's talking about?  It would seem
 > strange for Dired to interfere with specifiers, as the word "specifier"
 > doesn't even appear in the Dired source code.

There was a bug with insert-file-literally where some file handlers,
in particular the coding systems, would get called.  This would munge
any CRLF sequences to LF, for sure, and thus corrupt most binary files
of any size.  I think this is fixed, in 21.5.  It may never have been
fixed in 21.4.

 > Should I follow up to him on the list?

That's up to you.

 > I'm a bit concerned I'll get sucked into on of his tirades ...

Right now he's on his good behavior.  If you say you have tested,
can't reproduce and give details, he may not be willing to try to
reproduce if it was intermittent.  But I doubt you'll get a tirade, he
*is* a good maintainer and will respect your tests.  You'll notice
that in his reply to Jerry he cut most of the bullshit, and even the
"If you think AUCTeX will remove an Emacs feature to conform to XEmacs
APIs ..." crankiness could be argued to carry some information about
what kinds of APIs would be most useful to AUCTeX :-).