Re: [O] Bug: protocol capture without url corrupts org-stored-links [9.1.14 (9.1.14-1059-gadec50-elpaplus @ /home/ionasal/.emacs.d/elpa/org-plus-contrib-20181211/)]

[Allen Li]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 9:59 AM Nicolas Goaziou <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Could you give more context about the bug you're encountering? What does
> mean "function correctly if a URL was not provided"? What is the use
> case? What result did you expect, besides not encountering an error
> message?

The issue occurs when org protocol capture is invoked without a url param, e.g.

emacsclient 'org-protocol://capture?url=percent-encoded-url&body=some-text'

vs

emacsclient 'org-protocol://capture?body=some-text'

By "function correctly", I mean make the latter not break
org-insert-link by not corrupting the value of org-stored-links.

The use case is capturing some text without an associated URL.

The result I expect is the latter not breaking org-insert-link.

Note that invoking the latter otherwise behaves correctly/as expected.
It starts the capture process with the provided body text/initial
contents.  The only thing that breaks is org-insert-link when the user
calls org-insert-link later.

> There are multiple ways to solve this. In particular, if a URL is not
> provided, it seems natural to store nil instead, as
> `org-protocol-capture' currently does. If we do not support missing URL,
> then it should raise an error instead of letting it slip into
> `org-insert-link'. If we do, then `org-insert-link' should handle it
> gracefully.

Except storing nil is not supported by org-insert-link, breaking it
until the savvy user manually fixes org-stored-links.  I don't see
what meaning storing and inserting a nil link could have.

We could change org-insert-link to fix or ignore the invalid value in
org-stored-links, but why not stop inserting the invalid value into
org-stored-links in the first place?

>
> So, again, more context could help understanding what is the best
> solution.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou