bug#18851: 24.4; emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2014-10-29 05:50:12 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 02:28:02 +0100
> > From: Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>
> > Cc: 18851@debbugs.gnu.org
> > 
> > On 2014-10-28 17:34:59 -0400, Glenn Morris wrote:
> > > Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed:
> > > 
> > > It's easy to change that so that it switches to HOME instead (let's not
> > > worry about the case of HOME being missing too!); see patch at end.
> > 
> > Is there any reason to switch to another directory? Why doesn't
> > Emacs just ignore that the current directory has been removed
> > (and report errors only when an access to it is really needed)?
> 
> Because Emacs needs to pretend to the user that it runs _in_ that
> directory, so that relative file names work as you'd expect.

I don't expect anything about reative file names. But if I type
"emacs foo", opening file "foo" from $HOME would be bad.

> In this regard, Emacs is like the shell.

The shell has no problems when the current directory has been
removed. It can still run without needing to switch to $HOME.

> > Note that the current directory can also be removed after Emacs
> > is started, so I expect that Emacs already supports cases like
> > that.
> 
> No, it does not.  Either the OS leaves the directory in existence
> until Emacs exits, or the OS prevents you from removing it.

Linux does neither.

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Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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