Re: Files from gnulib

[Paul Eggert]

[Adding bug-gnulib to the thread that started in
 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-01/msg00761.html>]:

On 01/23/2011 04:15 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Some of the new files added from gnulib use file names that are
> invalid on 8+3 (aka MSDOS) filesystems.  These files are:
> 
>  c++defs.h -- the `+' character is not allowed in file names

I am sympathetic to the proposal to rename c++defs.h to cxxdefs.h,
as "+" is not in the POSIX portable file name character set; see
<http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_276>.

>  lib/stddef.in.h lib/time.in.h lib/unistd.in.h -- 2 dots are not allowed

The Emacs trunk already has seventeen other files
with 2 dots in their file names, with names like
lisp/gnus/.dir-locals.el and admin/charsets/mapfiles/symbol.txt.gz.
Since these haven't been a problem, why would file names
like getopt.in.h be a problem?

> In addition, several file names in the m4/ subdirectory clash after
> 8+3 truncation:
> 
>  gnulib-cache.m4  gnulib-common.m4  gnulib-comp.m4

Again, the Emacs trunk already has several instances of truncation
after 8+3 limits, such as lisp/org/org-compat.el versus
lisp/org/org-complete.el, and test/cedet/semantic-ia-utest.el
versus test/cedet/semantic-tests.el, and I don't see why
files imported from gnulib would be different.

> This will cause problems when unpacking the emacs tarball on those
> filesystems, something we managed to avoid until now.
> 
> Can these files be renamed, please?  I suggest cxxdefs.h for the first
> and FOO.in for the FOO.in.h files.  For the files in m4/, how about
> transposing the "gnulib" part with the rest, i.e. cache-gnulib.m4
> etc.?
> 
> (I would remove the files myself, but I don't know what changes in the
> gnulib imports will that require.)

Developers on Microsoft Windows platforms all have access to
better file systems these days, surely.  And as shown above
Emacs does not respect those limitations in other parts
of its source tree.  So, other than c++defs.h, I don't see
the need for renaming these files.