Re: Why @#! is not Emacs using the Recycle bin on w32?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Michael Ekstrand wrote:
> "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <address@hidden> writes:
>> I just deleted a file because I misunderstood dired. I needed that file
>> (of course).
>>
>> And then I found that dired did not make any backup and did not use
>> windows Recycle bin.
> 
> Recycle bins are a shell-level niceism that are not central to the
> operating system.  If you type 'del file' at the Windows command prompt,
> it will not use the recycle bin.

Thanks, yes, I know, but I don't understand why it is important here.

> Yes.  Emacs, when it deletes a file, tells the operating system to
> delete it.

Thanks.

> The major desktop environments all provide a recycle bin-like feature
> (usually called Trash) when you're using their file management
> facilities, but this is not a function of the operating system itself.
> 
> I would say, however, that allowing this to cause you to not trust
> GNU/Linux is a non sequitor.  Operating systems provide a "remove file"
> function to applications, and on most of them (both Windows and the
> Linux kernel included) actually remove the file when it is called.  To
> move to a recycle bin, you need to use move or something like it to put
> the file in the recycle bin.  Some applications do this.  Some do not.


On w32 you call a shell api with some flags. I would expect it to be
similar on other OS because this is a very central operation.

BTW David De La Harpe Golden mentioned versioning instead of recycle
bins. Some quick checks on the net showed that MS was moving in that
direction (maybe it is already in vista?). Of course I expect GNU/Linux
to do that to. And I actually expect the shells to use it too.