Re: [Nmh-workers] mhpath (was: 1.1RC4 stuff)

[Jon Steinhart]

> Jon Steinhart <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > BTW, I'm gonna make a small change; I need a -HONEST option to
> > mhpath.  mhpath has the annoying characteristic that it lies
> > if there is no current folder.  This is screwing up an application
> > that uses mhpath to find the current folder.  This is a simple
> > fix that shouldn't cause any problems.
> 
> Think twice about this. If there isn't a current folder, it returns
> +inbox like every other MH application as documented in mh-profile
> (Current-Folder).
> 
> Since any other behavior would be non-expected, the option really
> should be -lie.
> 
> Perhaps the application you refer to needs the fix instead.
> 
> p.s. I assume that you weren't serious about an uppercase option.
> Also, something like -honest isn't very descriptive. Something more
> like -err-no-current would be better.

I have thought about this.  There are time where one really wants to
know THE current folder, which means none if there is none.  The name
of the option isn't a serious religious issue to me; I used -honest
because the current behavior *IS* to lie, even if we're all accustomed
to it.

It's not the application that needs fixing here.  There are numerous
situations where other programs that need to work with nmh need to be
able to get nmh-specific information without having to include all of
the nmh logic.  Without this option it's not possible to find out that
there is no current directory without parsing a bunch of environment
variables and files.  To me, this is similar to the change that I made
a while ago (with agreement from the list) to have the uip programs
respond that nmh hasn't been installed if it isn't rather than trying
to install it.

Jon