Re: [PATCH] Treat :tangle-mode as an octal value not integer

[tomas]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2021 at 02:55:46AM -0400, Jeremy Cowgar wrote:
> On 2021-09-29 02:39, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> >On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 10:54:48AM -0400, Jeremy Cowgar wrote:
> >>As an org user I would expect :tangle-mode 0660 to produce a file that
> >>has user rw, group rw, other nothing. Instead, what really happens
> >>currently is 0660 is treated as an integer which is actually
> >>3140. This produces unexpected file permissions.
> >>
> >
> >Hm. This looks dangerous: interpreting an integer as octal just
> >due to the context?
> >
> >I do understand why, but still...
> >
> >Why not recommend Elisp's explicit syntax for octal representation,
> >i.e. :tangle-mode #o660? And put a prominent note in the docs,
> >of course.
> 
> Are you suggesting this currently works or that the patch should be
> changed to make that work? A quick try on my local system (pre-patch),
> I receive the error:
> 
>   Wrong type argument: fixnump, "#o660"

Oh. It seems Org converts that to string based on its own
rules instead of on Elisp's.

Note that I'm not dead set /against/ your proposal. I was pointing
out a possible inconsistency and arguing for some reflection, however
it may turn out.

I'd have a slight preference for the #oXXX variant (and for Org
agreeing with Elisp on what a number is ;-) but it's just that,
a slight preference.

The UNIX shell's convention "leading zero to denote base 8" (coming 
from C, I don't know where that comes from) is one not very happy
hack, IMO. But if that's what is in people's muscle memory, so
be it ;-)

Cheers
 - t

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