X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=sourceware.org; h=list-id :list-unsubscribe:list-subscribe:list-archive:list-post :list-help:sender:to:from:subject:date:message-id:references :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s= default; b=uSPEYopgb22CRNju07Ut9vnrEOV/2ch9u1x2wkN7ia4ZBu6B6sAxY vijEDidqDkK6/DFTN2HESjuJrTSyj+d7bm2PT6Cz7sh/826pPqUOlNOh4oUU0FY9 IXnnNBn+ZYyWdvR5yGsYB044Ip4Sm2HaiG+3DjALcuOBshNJp6sn88= DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=sourceware.org; h=list-id :list-unsubscribe:list-subscribe:list-archive:list-post :list-help:sender:to:from:subject:date:message-id:references :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; s=default; bh=yx2pW4o7QJZ+en7RBa6/ryW0Iiw=; b=rNq7M8YmoZMZSiOCX5ovOnoidvjg Rx9Wku4BtHtpLfHFK8k3vDAXcZrYbk/FCPxNLLxYFyvlRNpO+MUKHR2jq1Hf9wty AguW5C1bIkUtcW7ifp+y2bI203bkFD05zhizItzbHyiJf9UbsXIiZ6fp0/iEGySU 4YEuBO9JkNvdrp8= Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_PAST_12_24,FSL_HELO_BARE_IP_2,KHOP_THREADED,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO,RP_MATCHES_RCVD,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS autolearn=no version=3.3.1 To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com From: g Subject: Re: where was mention of what creates NUL files? Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:53:21 +0000 (UTC) Lines: 41 Message-ID: References: <4C93A171 DOT 4040402 AT fgm DOT com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Loom/3.14 (http://gmane.org/) Daniel Barclay fgm.com> writes: > > Does anyone recall a mention of what in CygWin (or possibly Emacs) creates > files with a simple name of "NUL"? > > Thanks, > Daniel > > This has been driving me nuts for years. Finally tracked it down. These are created by emacs' man.el code when you get a man page. Reproduce: In emacs, do: M-x man Now, you'll see a NUL file in the directory. Root cause: construction of the 'man' command that is passed to the shell includes: (concat " %s 2>" null-device) The variable `null-device' is platform specific and defaults to a pure-copy of "/dev/null" which, apparently, becomes "NUL" on windows. It is a defvar in files.el and 'set' again in dos-w32.el. Resolution: In your .emacs file, do: (require 'dos-w32) ;; load this first to avoid it undo'ing the next line (setq null-device "c:/tmp/emacs-dev-null.txt") ;; set to anything Happy days! -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple