Re: LYNX-DEV DIRED mods

[Klaus Weide]

On Sun, 17 Nov 1996, Nelson Henry Eric wrote:

> > testing the Klaus' DIRED mods, and they do seem to improve the behavior of
> > DIRED at least on my linux box (working of HP-UX build as I type).  I
> > *DID* however notice some odd behavior in DIRED.  Below are my comments on
> 
> Klaus did the fixes requested.  I have to confess though that I am guilty
> of not testing DIRED enough to find the other lurking problems.  Normally
> since I don't have permission outside of my home directory to do anything,
> I never use the ../ link and never try to move directories.  Well, bad news!
>                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > or HP-UX.  You could tag but not untag.  It also seems to be a lot faster
> > coming up with the initial directory.  The only problem I see with it in
> 
> Still seems sluggish to me if there are a lot of files in the directory, but
> then everything is slow on my machine.
> 
> > quick perusal is that when you are in the root directory, you still get a
> > ../ in the file list although Klaus removed the one at the top of the
> > screen.  Trying to go above the root directory has strange effects on the

Ok, It seems I will have to work on it a bit more.
 
> When I first do g => . => CR, both link 1 (at the top of the page) and link 2
> (the first in the file list) are `../'.  

I am not even sure whether the .. link should ever appear twice.
But, at least under "normal" circumstances, and with 
"l(I)st directory style" set to something else than "Mixed style"
(and LONG_LIST in effect etc.) the line for one link shows the name of the
parent directory ("Up to etc"), and the other shows the permission bits
etc. (as set by LIST_FORMAT).  So both may be useful.  Not that they alway
appear in the right place, though...

> If we want Unix-like display then
> link 1 should be `.' and link 2 should be `..', although `.' is sort of sense-
> less.  

A link to `.' should never be there.  (and I think DIRED mode does never
create one.)  I think the only way you can currently end up with a 
directory that ends in `/.' is by typing it in ('g'oto command or command
line), not by following links and moving to other directories.
Yes, a trailing `/.' should be simplified away...

>  When I hit link 1 or 2, I go up one directory, but the name of the
> directory is not correct, i.e., it should say `/home/kyoin/', but it says
> `/home/kyoin/nelsonhe/..'.  

.. which is not incorrect, it's just a more complicted way for saying
the same :).  But yes, trailing /something/.. should also be simplified
away.

> Strangely when I go up two or three directories
> the name becomes correct, namely `/home' and then `/'.  As Hiram says, `../'
> is a link even in root.  Each time you hit `../' in root, another `../' is
> added to the string of the directory name.

And `/..' (and `/../' and `/../..' etc.) should simplify to just `/' (and
then not be listed at all).  For URLs such a simplification would be
wrong, but for (only unix-like?) local filesystems it makes sense.
 
> The real problem came when I was testing the m)ove function on tagged
> directories in a directory outside of $HOME.  Lynx crashed with the following
> messages, 1) When I pressed return without adding anything to the prompt about
> where to move:

Ok, this is of course a definite bug.  Lynx shouldn't crash.
The following message: 

> mv: can't mv directories across file systems

makes sense, mv indeed cannot move directories across file systems...
(to circumvent that, a different command, or series of commands, would
have to be used; something like first `cp -p', then `rm'.  That's
probably not worth the trouble, and it could be difficult to protect
against loss of file if e.g. the target filesystem becomes full while
copying.)

But that should not lead to a fatal error.

> A Fatal error has occurred in Lynx Ver. 2.6
> 
> [...]
> 
> Lynx now exiting with signal:  11
> 
> and 2) When I input `../' to the prompt where to move:
> 
> mv: /home/kyoin/hogehoge/: rename: Permission denied
> 
> A Fatal error has occurred in Lynx Ver. 2.6
> 
> [...}
> 
> Lynx now exiting with signal:  11
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, this behavior is not consistant over all file systems.  It
> seems to only happen in the /home directory, which is mounted on another
> machine.  (I'm not at all sure of the terminology.  All I know is that
> df gives the following result.  The first two are on `ws01'.)
> Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
> /dev/sd0a              15007    4065    9442    30%    /
> /dev/sd0g             152047  133901    2942    98%    /usr
> ws02:/home           1278086  656626  493652    57%    /home

I will try to reproduce your fatal errors.  Let me know if you can
narrow down when they occur.

  Klaus

;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;