Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mgm.mit.edu!wolfgang
From: wolfgang@mgm.mit.edu (Wolfgang Rupprecht)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Query about GNU Emacs and Altos WorkNet
Message-ID: <1754@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 6-Nov-87 12:07:10 EST
Article-I.D.: bloom-be.1754
Posted: Fri Nov  6 12:07:10 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 14:57:57 EST
References: <5194@ncoast.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: wolfgang@mgm.mit.edu (Wolfgang Rupprecht)
Organization: Independent Software Consultant
Lines: 30

In article <5194@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
>situation (since it wants to construct full pathnames, and everyone knows
>that the root is /, it just keeps prepending the current directory from pwd
>-- which is rooted from @ -- to the path name).  My question is:  are there
>many Gnumacs files which assume that root is /?  And how hard would it be
>to check to see if the network is running and change the path construction
>rules based on it?  (How to tell is easy:  the local root is @/ if the
>server isn't running, but @machine/ if it is.)

In GnuEmacs the situation has a trivial (hack) fix. Just use the
find-file-hooks or the find-file-not-found hooks to adjust the path of
buffer-file-name and default-directory. Then read the file in again.

I faced the same problem in writing rcp.el which was a poor-man's NFS.
Files could (transparently) come from the net, and current directories
could be on remote machines. The only problem was that I had to
preface the network-pathnames with '/' to make emacs happy. (netnames
were '/machine:/full-pathname'). 

(Sorry, I don't have a copy of the code anymore. It died when LMI did.
I did post it to the net. Did someone by chance keep it? Could you
please send me a copy? thanks -wsr)

Perhaps you could just adjust the pathname, and write a one line
routine 'pwd' that called the real pwd, and just pre-pended a / onto
the @pathname.  Certainly would make a hell of a lot of programs
happier, not just emacs.
Wolfgang Rupprecht	UUCP: mit-eddie!mgm.mit.edu!wolfgang
				(or) mirror!mit-mgm!wolfgang
			ARPA: wolfgang@mgm.mit.edu (IP addr 18.82.0.114)