bug#81481: 31.0.91; dired-test-filename-with-newline failures on 32-bit Solaris sparc

On Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:03:51 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]> wrote:

>> From: Stephen Berman <[email protected]>
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]>,  [email protected], john muhl
>>  <[email protected]>
>> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2026 23:51:29 +0200
>> 
>> > I think this is correct, but I think the fix, both for the test failures
>> > and for deciding whether to display the warning and suggest changing the
>> > the Dired display, is to use `dired-use-ls-dired', as was considered
>> > earlier on in that other bug report
>> > (https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=80499#145), instead
>> > testing for ls support of -b.  I'll post a patch later.
>> 
>> The patch is attached.  If I made no mistake, the tests
>> dired-test-filename-with-newline-1 and
>> dired-test-filename-with-newline-2 should now be skipped on platforms
>> using an `ls' that does not support the --dired switch, and on such
>> platforms no warning should be displayed when visiting in Dired a
>> directory listing a file name containing a newline with
>> `dired-auto-toggle-b-switch' set to nil (the default), and setting this
>> user option to t should have no effect on such platforms.  Paul, can you
>> confirm for Solaris, and John Muhl (Cc'd), can you confirm for Alpine,
>> and Eli, can you confirm for MS-Windows?  (On platforms with an `ls'
>> that supports --dired, the behavior with the patch should be unchanged
>> from the behavior with the current code; I've confirmed this for my
>> GNU/Linux system.)
>
> How should I test on Windows, given that my 'ls' is GNU 'ls' and that
> by default 'ls' is not used on Windows?

Hm, I thought, evidently mistakenly, that any `ls' program did not work
on MS-Windows and that's why ls-lisp is used for Dired there.
                                          
>                                          Also, Windows doesn't allow
> file names with embedded newlines.  So what and how should I test?

Now I'm not sure; if your Windows uses GNU `ls' what happens if you try
to visit in Dired a directory listing a file name containing a newline,
both with `dired-auto-toggle-b-switch' set to nil and to t?  And what
happens in Emacs 30 or earlier, before the new handling of file names
with new lines was added?

> The patch LGTM otherwise.

I'm not sure about that either: in the tests I removed `(skip-when (memq
system-type '(windows-nt ms-dos)))' because I thought `(skip-unless
(dired--check-use-ls-dired))' would also skip the tests under Windows,
but if GNU `ls' can be used there, I guess that wouldn't suffice and the
skip-when sexp has to be restored?  And `dired--toggle-b-switch' and the
code in `dired-internal-noselect' for displaying the warning about file
names with newlines would have to explicitly exclude windows-nt and
ms-dos?

Steve Berman