Re: Tramp/Ange-FTP filename unification

[Kai Großjohann]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>> I think I've now done it so that it works.  The new filename format
>> is this:
>> 
>> Normal:
>>     /method:address@hidden:/path/to/file
>> Multi-hop:
>>     /multi:hopm1:address@hidden:hopm2:address@hidden:/path/to/file
>
> Using `:' for both separators makes filenames with omitted components
> more ambiguous.

Well, the filename "/method:/path/to/file" does not make sense IMHO.
Tramp is for editing remote files, you should always specify at least
a host name.  So in a filename like "/x:y", the x will be interpreted
as a host name.

Do you think that's bad?

> I thought there was pretty much a consensus to use `#' to delineate
> the method (either as a post- or prefix); why did you change it?

Well, err...  I didn't think that it was a problem which character to
use, as long as the total number of characters with special meaning
does not increase.

Another problem is that the design of regular expressions for the
multi-hop methods is a bit unfortunate, so that either each hop must
start with the same character, or each hop must end with the same
character.  And if I use the colon throughout then all hops,
including the first one, begin with a colon.

> [More importantly, why did you change it unilaterally?]

Maybe because I didn't expect any opposition.

In the end, I changed to `:' because it's prettier and easier to type.
But if general consensus is that `#' is prettier or easier to type or
whatever then of course, the regexp can be changed.  No problemo.

>> In the multi-hop format, all methods must be given, both the initial
>> "multi" or "multiu" which decides between base64 and uuencode, and
>> the hop methods hopm1, ..., hopmK.
>
> Why?

Because of limitations in the implementation: the autodetection is
not yet implemented.

For the hop methods, it is not practicable to implement
autodetection, as that would mean to attempt various kinds of
connections at each step.  And unless you guess right at the first
attempt, long timeouts will result.

kai
-- 
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