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Subject: Re: (concat "/dir/name/" "foo") --> (expand-file-name "foo" "/dir/name/")
Date: 13 Oct 2000 17:13:27 -0400
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Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Gro=DFjohann) writes:
> In the Gnus source code, we often have constructs like this:
>=20
>     (concat "/dir/name/" "file-name")
>=20
> I think this should be replaced with:
>=20
>     (expand-file-name "file-name" "/dir/name/")
>=20
> What do you think?

It depends on the contents of "file-name".  If it might contain
something that really needs to be normalized, then it should be handed
to expand-file-name.  If it should be interpreted literally, then
expand-file-name might do something unintended.  Consider, e.g.,
"foo/../bar", where foo is a symlink.

The default maildir in nnmaildir is expressed as
(concat (file-name-as-directory (expand-file-name "~")) "Maildir").
User-supplied maildir names are also normalized once with
expand-file-name, but then after that, dir/file is always accessed
with (concat (file-name-as-directory dir) file).  I think
file-name-as-directory and directory-file-name are idempotent on all
platforms, although they aren't documented as such, AFAICT.  nnmaildir
doesn't depend on their idempotency, as long as user-supplied maildir
names are what would be returned from directory-file-name.


paul