Re: emacs and SUBST command

[Stefan Monnier]

> Both are valid.  However, within emacs if I try to reference a file that's
> in C:\Temp, say, C:\Temp\Myfile.txt, by using the 1:\Myfile.txt notation,
> emacs doesn't find the file.  It can't work with anything under the 1:
> "drive".  Additionally, if my current drive is set to 1: and I try to
> start emacs, it crashes.

> I'm currently using emacs 21.3.1 on XP SP2.  Is this something that's
> fixed in 22.x, the current version, or is this simply something the
> authors weren't aware of and/or didn't anticipate?

IIRC all the code that tries to handle DOS drive letters looks for something
like "[a-z]:", so it's probably still there.  Please report this problem via
M-x report-emacs-bug.

This said, I'm not sure if a fix is a good idea (when you enter a file such
as "/foo/a:/bar", Emacs automatically turns it into a:/bar, which is usually
a convenient feature, but can be inconvenient in case you have a directory
called "a:", so the more permissive we get w.r.t. recognizing a "drive
letter prefix" the more often this inconvenience risks showing up).


        Stefan


PS: I have no idea what `subst' does and rarely if ever use Windows.