Darcs maintainers,

Below is a bug report from a Debian user (coincidentally, also me).
The associated Debian BTS ticket is http://bugs.debian.org/458629.
Please ensure that 458629@bugs.debian.org remains in the nosy list for
this roundup ticket.

This bug still exists in 2.0.0.

> Where x is a repository and y is a patch bundle,
>
>   $ darcs apply --repodir x ./y
>   darcs: y: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory)
>
> This behaviour is confusing, and the error message is unhelpful.
> Once it occurs to the user to try
>
>   $ darcs apply --repodir x $PWD/y
>   Finished applying...
>
> It becomes obvious that is chdir'ing before attempting to access the
> patch bundle.  Either it should not do so, or it should print a more
> meaningful error message (for example, including the absolute path
> that it tried to open).

Note that this is not limited to apply; other commands are affected:

  $ mkdir x y
  $ map darcs init --repodir -- x y
  $ darcs pull --repodir x y

  darcs failed:  Not a repository: y (y/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory))
  $ darcs pull --repodir x $PWD/y
  No remote changes to pull in!
  $ darcs push --repodir x y

  darcs failed:  Not a repository: y (y/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory))
  $ darcs push --repodir x $PWD/y
  Pushing to "/tmp/with-temp-dir.G26031/y"...
  No recorded local changes to push!