set-file-modes (XEmacs on w32) (was: nnmail-split-fancy-match-partial-words)

[Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc>]

On Sun, Mar 05 2006, Fabrice Popineau wrote:

> * Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:
>
>     Fabrice>  - (set-file-modes filename nnmail-default-file-modes))) +
>     Fabrice>  (gnus-set-file-modes filename nnmail-default-file-modes)))
>     Fabrice>  I think it should be applied anyway.  mail-source.el and
>     Fabrice>  mm-decode.el also use set-file-modes.
>
>     Reiner>  I didn't investigate the callers, but maybe it *should*
>     Reiner>  give an error if the modes cannot be set appropriately.
>     Reiner>  (Shouldn't the respective (X)Emacs function care for those
>     Reiner>  file system / operation system details?)
>
> The problem is that up to now, there were places where
> #'gnus-set-file-modes was used and others where #'set-file-modes was
> used. My point is that the same function should be used everywhere.

My point is that it might be better if Gnus (at least in the default
setup) should signal an error if it can't assure that the files or
directories have appropriate permissions.  Given that NTFS has the
possibility to ensure that, I think it would be a mistake to set
`gnus-ignore-set-file-modes-errors' to t by default on windows in
general.  On Windows 9x/ME and DOS -- but even there I'd think that
(X)Emacs implementation of `set-file-modes' should deal with this and
not Gnus.

>     Reiner>  *time passes* ...  After reading the discussion
>     Reiner>  <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/57528>, I
>     Reiner>  think we should change `gnus-set-file-modes' as follows...
>
> Seems ok to me. Your flag gnus-ignore-set-file-modes-errors should be t
> on win32 native (don't know about cygwin).

I looked at some non-Gnus occurrences of set-file-modes in XEmacs
(21.4.17/lib/xemacs/xemacs-packages/lisp/*/*.el).  (I didn't look at
tramp and efs because those deal with remote files.)  

Only vm/vm-folder.el does something like `ignore-errors':

vm/vm-folder.el:2675:	    (vm-error-free-call 'set-file-modes index-file (vm-octal 600))

All other packages just call `set-file-modes' directly.  Could you try
if savehist-mode fails for you too?  The version from XEmacs contains:

  (set-file-modes savehist-file savehist-modes)

Maybe you could ask on xemacs-beta if it is intended that
`set-file-modes' fails in your setup or if it is a bug.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
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      (o o)
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