Re: Starting ispell in some fixed directory

[Stuart D. Herring]

> Hello,
>
> Any comments on this?
[snip]
> #> +              (default-directory (if (member system-type '(cygwin
> windows-nt)) temporary-file-directory default-directory)))

You can use `memq' here, since you're comparing symbols.

> #> We could, alternatively, use the directory from which emacs.exe is
> #> running, but I do not know how to get it.
> #> (with-current-buffer "*scratch*" default-directory) would be good
> enough
> #> for me, but I believe it is even less likely to work reliably.

You can use the variable `invocation-directory', but I suppose it's
possible for that not to be known in some cases.  Why not just use "/" if
it exists, or else continue to call `directory-file-name' and
`file-name-directory' repeatedly until the result doesn't change?  Namely,

(let ((default-directory default-directory))
  (while (not (equal default-directory
              (setq default-directory
                    (file-name-directory
                     (directory-file-name default-directory)))))
  ...)

I can't see how this would ever fail; on Unix-like systems, you have to
have access to all parents of a directory to be in it anyway, and on all
systems (I believe) there are fixed points.  If this turns out to be
useful, an obvious `file-system-root' function could be created to put the
while loop in one place.

Davis

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