Re: w3m gives 'Wrong type argument: stringp, nil" error

[Christopher M. Balz]

Having set LIB (export) in .bashrc (/usr/local/lib/w3m/cgi-bin), and
for good measure set it as a Windows system environment variable, w3m
will browse local file directories with a normal file url as will any
other standard browser:

  file:///c:/

and so on just great. This is because it uses 'dirlist.cgi' to do so,
and can find said CGI program.  I saw someone using 'dirlist.bat' in
their .emacs file w3m section, and wonder if that would work.

But, CGI still doesn't work from within Emacs (user permissions are
correct).  So so far I can't get local directory listings via w3m in
Emacs (I haven't tried 'dirlist.bat').  See the following URL (all one
line):

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:5RORbQf_lNIJ:emacs-w3m.namazu.org/ml/msg04213.html+w3m+cgi+LIB+emacs&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Most people keep a lot of HTML files outside of their local web server
root, and thus, those files can't be served over http unless they are
moved to somewhere under the server root.

Unfortunately, merely putting in a Cygwin symbolic link doesn't work
for w3m on Windows.  So until Clemens Fischer or some such beneficent
soul gets CGI to work in emacs-w3m, I'll have to move the Javadoc.

  - CB

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:<3EDFB296.2090702@yahoo.com>...
> Christopher M. Balz wrote:
> 
> > Finally, does anyone know how to point w3m to its cgi, or, more
> > generally, how to just get it to work with local files?  My main
> > motivation for using w3m is to access Javadoc and other types of HTML
> > doc very fast -- it works g-r-r-reat for that as an Emacs HTML
> > browser.  But when I try to browse a local file directory, I get
> > "Cannot load c:/usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi" or "Cannot retrieve
> > URL".
> 
> Does it work if you specify a valid URL
> 
>       file://localhost/c:usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi
> 
> or whatever is correct for file names with drive letters.

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:<3EDFB296.2090702@yahoo.com>...
> Christopher M. Balz wrote:
> 
> > Finally, does anyone know how to point w3m to its cgi, or, more
> > generally, how to just get it to work with local files?  My main
> > motivation for using w3m is to access Javadoc and other types of HTML
> > doc very fast -- it works g-r-r-reat for that as an Emacs HTML
> > browser.  But when I try to browse a local file directory, I get
> > "Cannot load c:/usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi" or "Cannot retrieve
> > URL".
> 
> Does it work if you specify a valid URL
> 
>       file://localhost/c:usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi
> 
> or whatever is correct for file names with drive letters.

Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:<3EDFB296.2090702@yahoo.com>...
> Christopher M. Balz wrote:
> 
> > Finally, does anyone know how to point w3m to its cgi, or, more
> > generally, how to just get it to work with local files?  My main
> > motivation for using w3m is to access Javadoc and other types of HTML
> > doc very fast -- it works g-r-r-reat for that as an Emacs HTML
> > browser.  But when I try to browse a local file directory, I get
> > "Cannot load c:/usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi" or "Cannot retrieve
> > URL".
> 
> Does it work if you specify a valid URL
> 
>       file://localhost/c:usr/local/lib/w3m/dirlist.cgi
> 
> or whatever is correct for file names with drive letters.