Re: Multiple definitions of explicit-shell-file-name

[Stefan Monnier]

> I agree, but explicit-shell-file-name is used in contexts unrelated to
> shell.el, such as ansi-term and dired-insert-directory.

I don't consider ansi-term to be "unrelated" to shell.el, so I think
it's perfectly OK for it to (require 'shell).  It might even encourage
more sharing of code between the two.

> Rather than define explicit-shell-file-name in a central place like
> simple.el, should these external users all check that the variable is
> bound first?

For `dired-insert-directory`, I'm not sure whether it's better to use
bound-and-true-p like we do now or to use something else entirely.
IOW, I'm not completely sure why it uses `explicit-shell-file-name`
instead of `shell-file-name`.

But, it's clearly OK to leave the current dired code as is.


        Stefan