Re: [Nmh-workers] temporary files

[Jon Steinhart]

paul vixie writes:
> On 3/15/2012 6:12 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> > On 2012-03-15, at 11:04 AM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> >> But times have changed, and it doesn't work well with new stuff like 
> >> dropbox.
> > And dropbox is not a typical directory in the filesystem.  If you use a 
> > service that explicitly makes files publicly available 
> you shouldn't be surprised when it does what it's advertised to do.
> >
> > MH – quite reasonably – assumes UNIX filesystem semantics.  In particular, 
> > it assumes the permission bits are honoured, and it us
> es those bits to protect the file from public scrutiny.  If dropbox chooses 
> to ignore the permission bits, that's hardly MH's fau
> lt.
> 
> making this always be ~/@ rather than ./@ would fix this, even on
> dropbox systems, wouldn't it?

Answering both at once.

On one hand I agree with you, on another I don't.  The @ file is something that
is hardly every seen; one won't even notice unless one suspends when replying or
is looking at the same directory from another window.  It has the element of
surprise which is not a great thing in the UI sense.

I would suggest making it `mhpath +`/@ instead of ~/@.  Should be fine in ~ but
people expect mail stuff in the mail directory, and there are already plenty of
other temporary files that go there such as occasional turds left over from 
post.

Jon