GNU bug report logs - #37257
failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs --eval"

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 27.0.50;
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2019 02:21:51 +1000

Running emacsclient with alternate editor no longer works as it did.

This command for example:

emacsclient --eval '(progn (find-file "some_file.txt") (goto-line 1)
(back-to-indentation) (recenter) "")' --no-wait
--alternate-editor="emacs --eval"

Works in 26.3 - running the command in an existing emacs instance.

In 27.0.50 it reports that "emacs --eval" fails.

The issue can be traced back to this change:
6fe661342a24edcaea255c3ba9a37613031554da

In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.10)
 of 2019-09-02 built on austpc
Repository revision: a7d47e64aaf438feaa8cbe4d40acb7bae0eab059
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12005000
System Description: Arch Linux

Recent messages:
~/.emacs.d/local
Loading /home/ideasman42/.emacs.d/custom.el (source)...done
Loading server...done

Configured using:
 'configure --prefix=/opt/emacs --with-sound=no --disable-acl
 --with-file-notification=no --without-xpm --without-jpeg --without-tiff
 --without-gif --without-png --without-rsvg --without-lcms2
 --without-libsystemd --without-gsettings --without-harfbuzz
 --without-m17n-flt --without-libotf --without-gpm --without-dbus
 --without-gsettings --without-gconf --without-selinux --without-gnutls
 --without-zlib --without-makeinfo --without-libgmp --with-zlib
 --with-compress-install --with-threads --with-x
 --without-toolkit-scroll-bars --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-xft
 --with-modules 'CFLAGS=-O2 -mtune=native -march=native -pipe
 -fomit-frame-pointer''

Configured features:
GLIB LIBXML2 FREETYPE XFT ZLIB GTK3 X11 XDBE XIM MODULES THREADS JSON
PDUMPER

Important settings:
  value of $LC_CTYPE: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  display-fill-column-indicator-mode: t
  wcheck-mode: t
  visual-indentation-mode: t
  highlight-numbers-mode: t
  evil-leader-mode: t
  global-evil-surround-mode: t
  evil-surround-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  evil-mode: t
  evil-local-mode: t
  default-text-scale-mode: t
  global-git-gutter-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  savehist-mode: t
  override-global-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny format-spec rfc822 mml
mml-sec epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs
text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse
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ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils counsel xdg xref project dired
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evil-leader evil-surround evil evil-keybindings evil-integration
undo-tree diff evil-maps evil-commands reveal flyspell ispell evil-jumps
evil-command-window evil-types evil-search evil-ex shell pcomplete
comint ansi-color evil-macros evil-repeat evil-states evil-core
evil-common windmove thingatpt rect evil-digraphs evil-vars ring edmacro
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help-mode use-package use-package-ensure use-package-delight
use-package-diminish use-package-bind-key bind-key easy-mmode
use-package-core finder-inf info package easymenu browse-url
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uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win
term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
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prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
term/tty-colors frame cl-generic 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 charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook
help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs
button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5
base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote threads dynamic-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 267406 41968)
 (symbols 48 20005 1)
 (strings 32 83891 4273)
 (string-bytes 1 2328543)
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Message #10 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>, 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: Bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2019 14:52:51 -0700

Lars, the commit in question is the following, so could you please look 
into Bug#37257? Thanks.

commit 6fe661342a24edcaea255c3ba9a37613031554da
Author: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Date:   Thu Jun 27 20:59:50 2019 +0200

    emacsclient: ignore --eval parameters when starting alternate editor

    * lib-src/emacsclient.c (fail): If the user said --eval, don't
    pass those arguments to the alternate editor as file names.
    Suggested by a patch from Scott Turner (bug#11474).

Message #13 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>, 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 14:15:37 +0200

Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> Lars, the commit in question is the following, so could you please
> look into Bug#37257? Thanks.
>
> commit 6fe661342a24edcaea255c3ba9a37613031554da
> Author: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
> Date:   Thu Jun 27 20:59:50 2019 +0200
>
>     emacsclient: ignore --eval parameters when starting alternate editor
>
>     * lib-src/emacsclient.c (fail): If the user said --eval, don't
>     pass those arguments to the alternate editor as file names.
>     Suggested by a patch from Scott Turner (bug#11474).

The test case here is:

emacsclient --eval '(progn (find-file "some_file.txt") (goto-line 1)
(back-to-indentation) (recenter) "")' --no-wait
--alternate-editor="emacs --eval"

So the alternate editor is Emacs itself.

Hm.  I guess just reverting the change in question would fix this
regressions, but this is a rather strange use case.  What's the point of
specifying Emacs as the alternate editor?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #16 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>, 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 11:01:16 -0700

On 9/14/19 5:15 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> I guess just reverting the change in question would fix this
> regressions, but this is a rather strange use case.  What's the point of
> specifying Emacs as the alternate editor?

Presumably, because someone mistakenly started emacsclient even though no Emacs 
server is running.

Message #19 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>, 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 22:34:33 +0200

Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> On 9/14/19 5:15 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
>> I guess just reverting the change in question would fix this
>> regressions, but this is a rather strange use case.  What's the point of
>> specifying Emacs as the alternate editor?
>
> Presumably, because someone mistakenly started emacsclient even though
> no Emacs server is running.

Oh, right.  Yes, that seems like a useful use case.

Hm, I guess we should just revert the patch -- I don't see any obvious
way to determine whether --alternate-editor is Emacs (which will then
understand the rest of the parameters) or something else (which will
then not).  So leaving it the way it was is best.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #22 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 06:45:46 +1000

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On 2019-09-15 06:34, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> , I guess we should just revert the patch -- I don't see any obvious
> way to determine whether --alternate-editor is Emacs (which will then
> understand the rest of the parameters) or something else (which will
> then not).  So leaving it the way it was is best.

I'm not sure what the best solution is here, it's just I had something 
that worked and now I can't get emacs27 to work usefully in the same way.

It should be possible to run the code in the client or a new instance, 
but I didn't manage to get this working.

CODE='(progn (message "HELLO WOLD"))'
emacsclient --eval "$CODE" --alternate-editor  "emacs --eval '$CODE'"

Instead of starting a new emacs and printing HELLO WOLD,
it reports:

emacsclient: error executing alternate editor "emacs --eval '(progn 
(message "HELLO WORLD"))'"

[emacsclient_or_emacs_with_file.sh (application/x-shellscript, attachment)]

Message #25 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 14:13:37 +0200

Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I'm not sure what the best solution is here, it's just I had something
> that worked and now I can't get emacs27 to work usefully in the same
> way.

Yes, we'll fix it so that the regression you're seeing goes away, but
we're just discussing whether it's possible to do so without reverting
the change that fixed another bug.

I think it's unlikely that it's possible, so I've reverted the change,
which should make things work again for you.  Can you check?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #28 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 03:52:30 +1000

On 2019-09-15 22:13, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> I'm not sure what the best solution is here, it's just I had something
>> that worked and now I can't get emacs27 to work usefully in the same
>> way.
> 
> Yes, we'll fix it so that the regression you're seeing goes away, but
> we're just discussing whether it's possible to do so without reverting
> the change that fixed another bug.
> 
> I think it's unlikely that it's possible, so I've reverted the change,
> which should make things work again for you.  Can you check?
> Checked 6d3cb263f941545c09acb7fb86b8336ad130aa8e, this is working now.

Message #31 received at 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 37257 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#37257: failure of emacsclient ... --alternate-editor="emacs
 --eval"
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 14:33:51 +0200

Cambell Barton <ideasman42 <at> gmail.com> writes:

>> Checked 6d3cb263f941545c09acb7fb86b8336ad130aa8e, this is working now.

Thanks for checking; closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

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