Re: [gmane.emacs.bugs] Emacs fails to start properly if the current working directory is on a vfat or ntfs filesystem

[Jason Rumney]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Chong Yidong <address@hidden>
> > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:00:52 -0500
> >
> > Does anyone here have a vfat/ntfs partition for investigating this bug?
> >     
>
> There's no need to investigate, as the problem is clearly evident:
> Windows-based filesystems don't allow certain characters in file
> names, and `*' is one of these characters.  So a file name such as
> `#*scratch*#20913s5z#' is not allowed.
>
> To properly fix such a problem, Emacs needs to know the type of
> filesystem of a file.  Then we could employ the same technique as the
> Windows port does now, but conditioned by the filesystem, not the OS.
>
> However, I don't think we have infrastructure for querying the file
> about its filesystem type, do we?
>   

Alternatively, we could limit the filenames we generate for autosaving 
the scratch buffer (and any others like it) to use characters that are 
valid on all the filesystems we know about.