bug#18851: 24.4; emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2014-10-28 17:34:59 -0400, Glenn Morris wrote:
> Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> 
> > Emacs cannot be started if the current directory has been removed:
> 
> It's easy to change that so that it switches to HOME instead (let's not
> worry about the case of HOME being missing too!); see patch at end.

Is there any reason to switch to another directory? Why doesn't
Emacs just ignore that the current directory has been removed
(and report errors only when an access to it is really needed)?
Note that the current directory can also be removed after Emacs
is started, so I expect that Emacs already supports cases like
that.

In the init_buffer() function, it seems that pwd is used only for:

  bset_directory (current_buffer, make_unibyte_string (pwd, len));

If the current directory has been removed, couldn't Qnil be used
(or, if not possible, ".")?

Note: this is the first time (well, almost) I look at the Emacs
C source.

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Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)