bug#81531: 30.2; filenotify: moving file out of watched directory delays the "deleted" event until file is later moved back in

i_ix_iv <[email protected]> Sat, 1 Aug 2026 05:54:56 +0000
Newsgroups gmane.emacs.bugs
Message-ID <CAKVzi4jDXkiJm6jJRe7PvNOAg=Q4+XYMDEpStZ2KR1psExCVhA@mail.gmail.com>
Using a basic filenotify watcher on a directory and testing several
file movement commands doesn't result in expected `delete` actions being
caught by the filenotify watcher.

Starting from `emacs -Q`:
 - Run the below ELisp:
```elisp
(progn
  (require 'filenotify)
  (setq my-watch
    (file-notify-add-watch
      default-directory
      '(change)
      (lambda (event)
        (message "%S" event)))))
```
 - Run the below shell commands in ansi-term (Bash shell):
    1 -> `touch foo`
    2 -> `mv foo bar`
    3 -> `mv bar ..`
    4 -> `mv ../bar .`
    5 -> `rm bar`
 - Expected output:
    1 -> `((1 . 0) created "/home/user/.emacs.d/foo")`
    2 -> `((1 . 0) renamed "/home/user/.emacs.d/foo"
    "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`
    3 -> `((1 . 0) deleted "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`
    4 -> `((1 . 0) created "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`
    5 -> `((1 . 0) deleted "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`
 - Actual output:
    1 -> `((1 . 0) created "/home/user/.emacs.d/foo")`
    2 -> `((1 . 0) renamed "/home/user/.emacs.d/foo"
    "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`
    3 -> <no-output>
    4 -> ```
           ((1 . 0) deleted "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")
           ((1 . 0) created "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")
           ```
    5 -> `((1 . 0) deleted "/home/user/.emacs.d/bar")`


In GNU Emacs 30.2 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.52,
cairo version 1.18.4)
System Description: Arch Linux

Configured using:
 'configure --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr
 --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var --disable-build-details
 --with-cairo --with-harfbuzz --with-libsystemd --with-modules
 --with-native-compilation=aot --with-tree-sitter 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64
 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fno-plt -fexceptions -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3
 -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fstack-clash-protection
 -fcf-protection -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer -g
 -ffile-prefix-map=/build/emacs/src=/usr/src/debug/emacs -flto=auto'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--sort-common -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,-z,relro
 -Wl,-z,now -Wl,-z,pack-relative-relocs -flto=auto''

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY
INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP X11 XDBE XIM XINPUT2 XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=fcitx
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: ELisp/d

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  minibuffer-regexp-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068
epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail
rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils term disp-table
shell pcomplete ehelp comint subr-x ansi-osc ansi-color ring filenotify
help-fns radix-tree cl-print debug backtrace help-mode find-func vc-git
diff-mode track-changes easy-mmode vc-dispatcher cl-loaddefs cl-lib
term/xterm xterm byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile rmc iso-transl
tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd
touch-screen tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list
replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar
menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse
jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer
nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo gtk x-toolkit xinput2 x multi-tty move-toolbar
make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 94046 19242) (symbols 48 8309 0) (strings 32 22547 2408)
 (string-bytes 1 691200) (vectors 16 10940)
 (vector-slots 8 128789 9504) (floats 8 37 17) (intervals 56 602 17)
 (buffers 992 14))