bug#9139: 24.0.50; Inappropriate warning: "File no longer exists!"

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> Emacs sends an inappropriate warning message when trying to 
> find a file that isn't on the hardrive but is the filename of 
> a buffer, thus somehow "existing" in Emacs.
>
> To reproduce the problem:
>
> emacs -Q
> C-x f ~/foo.txt
> C-x b bar
> C-x f ~/foo.txt
>
>   => File no longer exists!

Yes, it shouldn't say anything in this instance.

But how?  It's this code in files.el:

                  (cond ((not (file-exists-p filename))
                         (setq nonexistent t)
                         (message "File %s no longer exists!" filename))

Is there something stored in the buffer that's stored if the file once
has existed, but no longer exists?  Let's see...

(visited-file-modtime)
=> (-1 65535)

in foo.txt.  But is that a bug?

The doc string says:

Return the current buffer's recorded visited file modification time.
The value is a list of the form (HIGH LOW), like the time values
that `file-attributes' returns.  If the current buffer has no recorded
file modification time, this function returns 0.

So I think that perhaps is should return 0?
                         
-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/