bug#15776: On Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Cocoa Emacs starts in the root directory instead of the home directory

[Fazal Majid]

I have a build of GNU Emacs for the Mac. On 10.8 Mountain Lion, launching the 
app works normally - the working directory is my home directory. On 10.9 
Mavericks. when launched from the Dock or Finder, the default directory is the 
root directory instead of my home directory. If launched from the command-line, 
the correct behavior holds.

It looks like there is custom code in src/emacs.c #ifdef-ed for HAVE_NS and 
NS_IMPL_COCOA that checks to see if the first or second command-line argument 
starts with “-psn”, and if so, perform a chdir(getenv(“HOME”)).

It seems like the behavior changes in Mavericks, and apps no longer get the 
-psn command-line argument. Apps are always launched with a cwd of /, even in 
Mountain Lion, but now Emacs is not taking corrective action.

The solution is probably to do a version check of OS X and if 10.9 or above, do 
the chdir anyway.

Here is the patch I am using, which is cruder, as it does not check for OS X 
version:

--- emacs-24.3/src/emacs.c.dist 2013-10-31 22:36:23.000000000 -0700
+++ emacs-24.3/src/emacs.c      2013-10-31 23:00:45.000000000 -0700
@@ -1173,6 +1173,9 @@
               chdir (getenv ("HOME"));
             }
         }
+      /* On Mavericks, there is no -psn command-line argument so do this 
anyway,
+         otherwise the CWD would be the root directory */
+      chdir (getenv ("HOME"));
 #endif  /* COCOA */
     }
 #endif /* HAVE_NS */


— Fazal Majid

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.0.0, NS apple-appkit-1265.00)
 of 2013-10-31 on undr.majid.org
Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.1265
Configured using:
 `configure '--prefix' '/usr/local' '--with-ns' '--with-gif=no'
 '--x-includes=/usr/X11R6/include' '--x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib'
 '--with-xpm' 'CC=clang''

Important settings:
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Fundamental

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
C-x C-f C-g M-x r e p <tab> o <tab> r <tab> <retur
n>

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Quit
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--
Fazal Majid
CTO, Apsalar Inc.
majid@apsalar.com
+1 415 347-1277 (347-1APP)