Re: set-file-modes (XEmacs on w32)

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

[ Not trimming the quotes because I added xemacs-beta.
  See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/62158
  or  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/62140
  for more context. ]

On Mon, Mar 06 2006, Reiner Steib wrote:

> 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.

I tried with Emacs 22 (system-type = windows-nt) on an NTFS
filesystem and with Emacs 22 on GNU/Linux on a vfat USB disk:

  (require 'mail-source)
  (set-file-modes "/path/to/file" mail-source-default-file-modes)

No error.  Same with XEmacs 21.5.21 (+CVS-20050720) on GNU/Linux with
a file on the same vfat USB disk.

>>     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.

Is is intended that `set-file-modes' throws an error in XEmacs in
Fabrice's setup?

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
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