Re: prefix-needed style in _popd

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

Bart wrote:
> _mh has a lot more specialized knowledge about mh and its subcommands than
> _mailboxes does.  For example, _mh also knows about sequences.  _mailboxes
> just wants to generate all possible matches for other programs that can
> interpret MH mailbox hierarchies.
> 
> Which now makes me think that _mailboxes is doing the right thing, and
> thus that prefix-needed should be tested by callers of _mailboxes rather
> than by _mailboxes itself.

I think that's probably right.  In the case of MH, at the points where
folder names are needed you need either a + or @, almost certainly a + for
most people, and nothing else, so prefix-needed will just be infuriating
(well, I find it always is, but in this case it doesn't have any side
effect of working sometimes).  In other cases, in principle it might be
possible to complete something other than a mailbox if there is no prefix.
I don't think _mailboxes can decide all this easily.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR Ltd., Unit 300, Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0XL, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 392070