Re: Integrate Tramp

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>     Tramp knows the following kinds of filenames (square brackets are
>     literal characters):
>
>     /[host]file
>     /address@hidden
>     /[method/address@hidden
>     /[multi/hop1:address@hidden/hop2:address@hidden
>
> (Note that I am not sure whether the strings `hop1' and `hop2' that
> appear in the last example are literal or metasyntactic variables.)

They are metasyntactic variables.  Sorry for not making this clear.
Choices are ssh, telnet, rsh, su, sudo.  For each hop, you specify
which command should be used to log into that computer.

> I suggest these syntaxes:
>
>     /host:file
>     /address@hidden:file
>     /address@hidden@method:file
>     /address@hidden:address@hidden:file
>
> If there is some sort of "hop" information that needs to be given,
> the last could look like
>
>     /address@hidden@hop1:address@hidden@hop2:file
>
> This seems both simpler and more natural than either your current
> syntax or your current proposal.  `[multi]' seems unnecessary, since
> you can determine how many colons there are.  The
> file-name-handler-alist can specify "^/\\([^/:]*[^/:.]:\\)+" to match
> the whole prefix.

This could almost work, except that there are two multi methods.  (One
uses uuencode and the other uses base64 encoding to transfer the
files.)

In the old Tramp, you say /[multi]... for base64 and /[multiu]... for
uuencode.

Hm.

>     * We designate a special method "ftp" which, when specified, invokes
>       Ange-FTP.
>
> That is a good idea.

OK.

The following part:

>     * Tramp is augmented with an alist of user/host pairs and default
>       methods.  This alist can be used to tell Tramp to use any method,
>       including "ftp", for a specific user/host combination.
>
>     * Specifying the method in the filename overrides this alist.
>
> Those seem like good ideas too.  Perhaps the alist should contain
> regexps to match against the user and the host.
>
> In addition, there should be a separate customizable user option that
> specifies the ultimate choice of method, for when the user/host pair
> is not mentioned in the alist.

... is already implemented.  The new code is not in the Emacs CVS,
only in the Tramp CVS (on Savannah).  (I'll copy the changes soon.)
The current implementation still uses the bracket-style filenames,
but I want to change that as well, including the forward-to-Ange-FTP
feature that we were talking about.

kai
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