Re: unclear documentation for directory-sep-char

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> Date: 08 Jan 2003 19:37:57 +0100
> 
>     directory-sep-char's value is 47
> 
>     This variable is obsolete since 21.1;
>     do not use it.
> 
>     Directory separator character for built-in functions that return
>     file names.  The value should be either ?/ or ?\ (any other value
>     is treated as ?\).  This variable affects the built-in functions
>     only on Windows, on other platforms, it is initialized so that
>     Lisp code can find out what the normal separator is.
> 
> This sounds as if it were obsolete usage to _write_ anything into
> this variable, but reading from it should be fine.  In that case the
> variable is not obsolete.

It _is_ obsolete (in past discussions we agreed to remove it in a
future release).  What the doc string attempts to tell is that, for
now, it's okay to read from the variable, but setting it to any value
will not have (almost) any effect.  It's possible that the wording
should be changed to make this more clear.

> If it is supposed to be obsolete, however, there should be mentioned
> a way to get at the desired information by other means.

You should just use ?/ unconditionally.  If this is somehow
inappropriate in the specific case(s) where you bumped into this
problem, please describe the specifics.