Re: tramp (2.0.55); Remote filename completion hangs

[Michael Albinus]

Keith Swartz <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Michael,

Hi Keith,

[I keep tramp-devel in Cc, for the archives]

>> However, I cannot reproduce it here. Starting
>>
>>  "C:\Program Files\emacs-22.1\bin\runemacs.exe" -Q
>>
>> I can type "C-x C-f /plink:address@hidden: <TAB>", and I get "[No match]"
>> (I have no plain ssh). Not exciting, but at least it doesn't hang. The
>> same happens, when I have evaluated `(setq partial-completion-mode t)'
>> before.
>>
>> Could you, please, run this test (starting "emacs -Q")?
>
> I get the same behavior with emacs -Q.

OK, this is consistent.

> And if I don't have
> partial-completion-mode loaded, I also get the "[No match]", but I
> believe that's because the documentation states that you need to have
> partial-completion-mode enabled in order for remote filename completion
> to work. (http://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/#Filename-completion)

IIRC, partial-completion-mode is needed for method or user name or host
name completion. You do file name completion, which is different.

Btw, the URL points to the Tramp 2.1 documentation. You are using Tramp
2.0, there are some subtle differences.

> However, this is an interesting twist -- I didn't think to include the
> password in there. When I tried doing this:
>
> C-x C-f /myname:address@hidden:~/dir<TAB>
>
> I get a very different: "Symbol's function definition is void: nil".

Yes. Passwords cannot be coded in Tramp filenames.

> But no hang. I think it's not supporting the password in there, at
> least not for the default mode -- here's the stack trace when I do
> that. Could be that the hang is happening somewhere between here and
> when the program is called.
>
>   tramp-file-name-handler(expand-file-name mailto:/xxx:address@hidden: 
> "d:/tmp/")

That is completely crazy. Where does the "mailto" comes from? And why is
the first argument not a string? So please don't use passwords in the
filename specification, it confuses Tramp seriously ...

Filename completion has ever been a pain due to the ambigous Tramp file
name syntax (you cannot know, whether ":" is a method or a host name
delimeter, when the filename is not complete). And I remember vaguely,
that the situation under Windows is even worse (I don't use Windows
actively).

So maybe the best guess is to avoid partial-completion-mode for Tramp
2.0 under Windows. Tramp 2.1 has some improvements here, but I don't know
the status under Windows, again.

Anyway, filename completion shall work when it comes to the file
names. That means, what happens to

  C-x C-f /address@hidden:~/dir <TAB>
  C-x C-f /address@hidden:/ <TAB>

when you don't use partial-completion-mode? Alternatively, what happens to

  C-x C-f /ftp:address@hidden:~/dir <TAB>
  C-x C-f /plink:address@hidden:~/dir <TAB>

> Keith

Best regards, Michael.