Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 4d3a595: `load-path' should contain only directory names

[Random832]

Random832 <address@hidden> writes:
> I think the intent of the existing documentation is that a so-called
> "directory name" is the one that may be concatenated to a filename to
> form a path. For example, on VMS:

tl;dr: Indeed. Code archaeology follows.

>   DKA0:[MYDIR.SUBDIR1.SUBDIR2]        would be the "directory name"
>   DKA0:[MYDIR.SUBDIR1]SUBDIR2.DIR;1   would be the "directory filename"
>
> Maybe this should be called a "directory prefix"? I don't think you can
> concatenate it to a relative path other than a simple filename on VMS
> though. What _do_ (or did) these functions do on VMS

To answer my own question, I refer to the source code of Emacs 22.

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/fileio.c?id=emacs-22.3

| On VMS, converts \"[X]FOO.DIR\" to \"[X.FOO]\", etc.  */)

| On VMS, given a VMS-syntax directory name such as \"[X.Y]\",
| it returns a file name such as \"[X]Y.DIR.1\".  */)

In general, the code dedicated to VMS in these functions seems far more
extensive than the current versions that exclusively handle Unix and
Windows/DOS paths.


> or other systems with exotic path formats (Risc OS?), if any are (were
> ever) supported?

I couldn't find any reference to Risc OS ever being supported.

> I wonder, what Emacs does (or did) on classic MacOS.

At first I couldn't find any special code at all for this, and wondered
if the C runtime handled it. I eventually located this file:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/mac/src/mac.c?id=emacs-21.3

It was apparently removed immediately when OSX support was added in
2001, and no-one missed it.