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

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 22:32:58 -0400
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden,
>       address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> The elements of 'load-path' (and every ...-path variable)
> should properly be directory names, not file names.

What's the rationale for that?

> Some things, perhaps many, will handle directory file names
> in these variables, and it is ine being defensive in that way;
> but clean code will only put directory names into the lists.

We have never done that, AFAICS, neither with load-path, nor with
exec-path.  The value of load-path comes from directory-files, where
directories don't have trailing slashes.  The value of exec-path comes
from the environment variable PATH, where usually you won't see
trailing slashes, either.

Once we agree with the rationale, it's okay to make these lists have
directory names instead, but we need to code that, it won't happen by
itself.  And I see no such code in the history of Emacs since these
variables were introduced.  So apparently we never had directory names
in these variables, only directory file names.