bug#12351: 24.1; parse-colon-path turns empty paths into nil

[Dave Abrahams]

on Sun Dec 30 2012, Wolfgang Jenkner <wjenkner-AT-inode.at> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 30 2012, Dave Abrahams wrote:
>
>> The following function is buggy because of the original bug:
>>
>> (defun osx-plist-update-exec-path ()
>>   "Update `exec-path' from the PATH environment variable."
>>   (let ((path (getenv "PATH")))
>>     (mapc (lambda (dir)
>>             (add-to-list 'exec-path dir))
>>           (parse-colon-path path)))
>>   exec-path)
>>
>> I had to replace it in my local installation as follows:
>>
>>   (defun osx-plist-update-exec-path ()
>>     "Update `exec-path' from the PATH environment variable."
>>     (let ((path (delq nil (parse-colon-path (getenv "PATH")))))
>>       (setq exec-path
>>             (dolist (dir exec-path path)
>>               (add-to-list 'path (file-name-as-directory dir) :append)))))
>
> But the first function exhibited a bug only with an empty component in
> the path.  So I'd guess that nil ought to be replaced by "." instead of
> being deleted from the list.  

No, that would be wrong.  Every OS I know of treats empty elements in
"colon paths" (semicolon paths on Windows) differently from elements
that are "."

> If the second function gives the correct result that means that
> exec-path already contained "." before the call.
>
> And in any case, wouldn't the trivial patch (relative to trunk) below do
> the right thing here?
>
> Confused,
>
> Wolfgang
>
> === modified file 'lisp/files.el'
> --- lisp/files.el     2012-12-17 15:51:49 +0000
> +++ lisp/files.el     2012-12-31 01:00:47 +0000
> @@ -664,7 +664,7 @@
>    (when (stringp search-path)
>      (mapcar (lambda (f)
>             (substitute-in-file-name (file-name-as-directory f)))
> -         (split-string search-path path-separator t))))
> +         (split-string search-path path-separator))))
>
>  (defun cd-absolute (dir)
>    "Change current directory to given absolute file name DIR."

It depends whether you think the "right thing" is the old behavior or
the documented behavior or something else.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing                  Software Development        Training
http://www.boostpro.com             Clang/LLVM/EDG Compilers  C++  Boost