bug#81295: 32.0.50; dired-auto-toggle-b-switch problem with subdirectory

On 28/07/2026 11:51 +0200, Stephen Berman wrote:

[...]

>> I still think I'm opposed to the fix, because 1) it surely will
>> introduce more subtle bugs (I think I can come up with the cases
>> easily),
>
> Are you referring just to the change that skips validation or to the
> entire change to dired-aux.el?  If the former, and you demonstrate that
> it introduces bugs at least as serious as the one it fixes, then I
> certainly have no objection to omitting that part of the patch.

Only to the latest patch which circumvents validation.  I tried to
explain why I think it's problematic, and see no need for a concrete
recipe - I think it's clear that the change breaks logic, so finding a
way to exploit it is just a waste of time.  If you think that it still
needs to be installed, and maintainers agree, then I certainly too.

>>          2) it will be harder to clean up later.  A FIXME is IMO better
>> for now, given that we don't have bug reports on this other than mine.
>>
>> I'll try to come up with an implementation of what I proposed, but
>> later.
>
> When you wrote above "perhaps we better leave this unfixed for now.
> You've fixed my original complaint in this bug, this is already an
> improvement.", it seemed clear you were referring just to the problem I
> "fixed" by skipping validation.  But your proposal to add more
> buffer-local variables would AFAIU also entail different changes than
> the rest of what my patch for dired-aux.el contains; but without those
> changes, newlines in filenames in Dired subdirs would be left unhandled,
> and the change to `dired--filename-with-newline-p' would be useless.

The "original complaint" (the one I created the bug about) was about
inserting a subdir with i - this is fixed.  The latest problem in this
thread is about doing it with custom switches - that's the one which I'm
suggesting to omit for now.

My suggestions for next improvements involve adding more state, because,
as I wrote above, currently we lose information about user's custom
switches when modifying "actual switches".  I don't see how that makes
your changes irrelevant.

> It's not clear to me how to proceed at this point, so I'm asking the
> maintainers for their opinion and will defer to that.  AFAIU the choice
> is between my patch for handling newlines in filenames in Dired subdirs,
> either including the case of `C-u i' (attached patch 1) or leaving this
> case unfixed for now (attached patch 2), or waiting for your alternative
> implementation for handling newlines in filenames in Dired subdirs.

Your patch #2 is fine to me.  I was only opposed to skipping validation
in patch #1, this part:

-    (and (not switches) cons (setq switches (cdr cons)))
+    ;; If `dired-actual-switches' now includes "-b" due to
+    ;; `dired--toggle-b-switch', we don't want to override this by
+    ;; passing incompatible switches via `C-u i', so we skip validation
+    ;; in this case.  FIXME: Is there a better way?  See bug#81295.
+    (and (not switches) (not (dired-switches-escape-p dired-actual-switches))
+         cons (setq switches (cdr cons)))