Re: where was mention of what creates NUL files?

[wynfield at gmail dot com]

I do not have the problem using emacs built on cygwin either.


> On 6/26/2013 2:53 PM, g wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Daniel Barclay <daniel <at> fgm.com> writes:
> >
> >>
> >> Does anyone recall a mention of what in CygWin (or possibly Emacs) creates
> >> files with a simple name of "NUL"?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Daniel
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > This has been driving me nuts for years. Finally tracked it down.
> > These are created by emacs' man.el code when you get a man page.
> > Reproduce:
> > In emacs, do:
> >      M-x man <ret>
> >      <enter anything, valid ('ls') or not>
> > Now, you'll see a NUL file in the directory.
> 
> I can't reproduce this with Cygwin emacs.  You must be using native
> Windows emacs.
> 
> > Root cause:
> > construction of the 'man' command that is passed to the shell includes:
> > (concat " %s 2>" null-device)
> >
> > The variable `null-device' is platform specific and defaults to a pure-copy
> > of "/dev/null" which, apparently, becomes "NUL" on windows.
> >
> > It is a defvar in files.el and 'set' again in dos-w32.el.
> >
> > Resolution:
> > In your .emacs file, do:
> >
> >     (require 'dos-w32) ;; load this first to avoid it undo'ing the next line
> >     (setq null-device "c:/tmp/emacs-dev-null.txt") ;; set to anything
> 
> Just to be clear, users of Cygwin emacs should *not* do this.
> 
> Ken
> 
> 

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