Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 18:45:39 +0300
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Sender: halo1 AT zahav DOT net DOT il
To: "Tim Van Holder" <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>
Message-Id: <6480-Sat09Jun2001184538+0300-eliz@is.elta.co.il>
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CC: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <CAEGKOHJKAAFPKOCLHDICEABCEAA.tim.van.holder@pandora.be>
Subject: Re: .files on servers are perceived as readonly
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> From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>
> Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 15:49:23 +0200
> 
> > In other words, the write bit in the Posix mode bits was the only way
> > `stat' could relate to a program that such files are special.  It's
> > not a bad approximation, given how many years it works without
> > complaints.
> Well, I suppose you could use the sticky bit for hidden and the suid bit
> for system (the latter would be especially apt, as it would cause an 's'
> to appear in "ls -l" output).

Thought about that, but rejected it: it would have had undesirable
consequences on other ported programs, when they interpret those bits
as on Unix.

Remember: we are talking about `stat', not about `ls' alone.  So the
solution must be good enough for all programs that use `stat'.

> > Could you please explain what exactly is wrong with that?  Why did it
> > annoy you that .cvsignore was shown as not writable?
> Because it's a writable file.

Not really:

    D:\usr\djgpp\data>touch foobarh

    D:\usr\djgpp\data>attrib +H foobarh

    D:\usr\djgpp\data>del foobarh
    File not found

> Wouldn't it annoy you if emacs considered
> .emacs read-only, just because it somehow got its hidden bit set?

No.  If someone set that bit, I'd surely want to know that there's
something special about the file.  I certainly would _not_ want to see
it with only the normal "rw-r--r--" mode bits.