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emacselisp

Error with expand-file-name function in emacs lisp

I'm using Emacs 25.2.1 under Arch Linux.

When I try to expand /.. or /../ or /../rest/of/path paths with expand-file-name, there is not changes. Is it a bug? Could I use other (better) function?

Thanks

Solution

  • This is the intended behavior: /../ is the "super-root" on certain file systems:

    Some Unix systems support a directory below the root directory. Normally, "/.." points back to the same inode as "/", however, under MUNIX, this can be changed to point to a super-root directory, where remote trees can be mounted. If, for example, two workstations "pcs2a" and "pcs2b" were connected via "connectnodes" and "uunite" startup script, "/../pcs2b" could be used to access the root directory of "pcs2b" from "pcs2a".