Re: shell-dir-cookie-re in Emacs 24

[Stefan Monnier]

> Emacs 24 has this in NEWS:
> *** New variable `shell-dir-cookie-re'.
> If set to an appropriate regexp, Shell mode can track your cwd by
> reading it from your prompt.

> Could you explain what the purpose of this is?  The docstring says "It
> can be used instead of or in addition to `dirtrack-mode'", but what does
> it do that dirtrack-mode doesn't already do?

IIRC it's a poorly designed feature which should really be merged with
dirtrack-mode (it's basically a lighter-weight version of dirtrack-mode,
I think).  The main distinguishing feature is that shell-dir-cookie-re
tries to work even if the prompt does not contain an absolute directory
(e.g. I use it with prompts which only contain the last 2 elements of
the absolute file name).


        Stefan