Re: dired-do-rename on "." and ".."

[Luc Teirlinck]

Markus Rost wrote:

   That patch seems to be an improvement.  However, what is unfortunate
   with the recent changes, is that now many reasonable dired operations
   don't work anymore on ".", "..", like

   S runs the command dired-do-symlink
   H runs the command dired-do-hardlink
   M runs the command dired-do-chmod
   G runs the command dired-do-chgrp
   O runs the command dired-do-chown
   ! runs the command dired-do-shell-command

   I use in fact S, M, ! on "." once in a while.  Frankly said, I prefer
   to undo the recent changes instead of disabling every operation on
   ".".

I did take a look at your original problem and now I am actually
getting really weary of having some of these commands operate on . and
..  It is not merely a problem of somebody finding enough time to
invest.

The problem you described occurred while trying to operate on . and
nothing else.  But most of these commands can operate on a bunch of
marked files.  When wanting to operate on all subdirectories using say
* / , you have to be very careful to unmark . and .. , which one
usually does _not_ want operated on.

If one has a bunch of marked files including . and .. , I am
personally not even really sure what the result of R , C , S , H , and
some others _ought_ to be. These commands would operate on different
levels of the directory tree, with potentially confusing results.  M ,
G , O seem safe, ! depends on the actual command given.

I like to play tricky games, but not with my file system.  When it
comes to my file system, safety is more important than convenience.
If all you want to do is operate on . , you can do ^ first, which has
the advantage that you do not even need to be on the "correct line".
To operate on .. , one can do ^^ first.

Sincerely,

Luc.