Re: Start value in minibuffer [Was: opening /tmp//foo doesn't work.]

[Robert J. Chassell]

Today's GNU Emacs CVS snapshot, Mon, 2005 Nov 14  11:30 UTC
GNU Emacs 22.0.50.25 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.6.10)
started with

     emacs/src/emacs -Q -D

Lars Hansen wrote,

   ... Emacs interprets the minibuffer contents as /foo
   although it is /tmp//foo.
   IMHO that is not very elegant. And it does not work as a general
   approach: Consider some command with initial value foo, and imagine the
   user types bar. How would Emacs know if he means foobar (minibuffer
   contents) or just bar?

I do not understand you.

When I look at the file of a command using `C-x C-f' (find-file),
which I just did, Emacs always offers me the current directory and I
can type in the file name.  For example, /bin/ --> /bin/cat.

I always see the trailing / of the current directory and never end up
with /bincat, which would be bad were it to happen inadvertently.

When I do remove the trailing /, then I do create /bincat, an empty
file as I expect.

When I use `C-x C-v' (find-alternate-file), I remove just the command
name part of the complete offering, type in the name, and Emacs goes
to the appropriate file, /bin/cat --> /bin/bash.

We must be talking past each other.

--
    Robert J. Chassell
    address@hidden                         GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc