Using "darcs-2.1.2+302.exe"
(from zooko.com/darcsbuildbot/uploads/zooko_allmydata_virtual2/snapshots/ ,
"Last modified" date 20-Nov-2008 14:58)
on Windows XP Pro SP3:
  C:
  cd \source
  darcs-2.1.2+302.exe send --context=\path\to\file.context --output=file.bundle .
  darcs-2.1.2+302.exe: C:/source/path/to/file.context: openBinaryFile: does not
exist (No such file or directory)

The context file was present at C:\path\to\file.context but darcs was ignoring
the initial backslash and treating the path as relative. There is no error if
the "C:" prefix is included.

"darcs-2.1.2+302.exe apply \path\to\file.bundle" gives the same error.

Thank you very much. I hope that this confusing behavior has not wasted too much 
of your time. I presume that you are able to work around it.

I can confirm this behavior: With the stated "darcs-2.1.2+302.exe" on windows, 
an initial backslash (in fact, any number, apparently, of initial backslashes) 
on the filename following --context are apparently ignored. Although in the same  
neighborhood as issue950, it is not the same. In addition, the tested darcs has 
presumably been fixed with the patch for issue950.

So, we need a testcase for this. And a repair. Any volunteers?

Thanks a lot and best regards
Thorkil

Thorkil,

Thanks for your response.

I had a go at changing the darcs source (cabal build, darcs-2.1.2.2) and my
changes seemed to fix the problem. However, I'm not sure that it's the right
answer to the problem.

I made two small changes to the makeAbsolute function in Darcs/RepoPath.hs :

1) I changed "if is_absolute dir" to "if is_absolute cleandir", because
is_absolute only detects forward slashes.

2) I removed "slashes ++" because it was prepending an extra slash and making
the path start with "//". This change would break the code if there is ever a
case when "FilePath.normalise cleandir" is missing a significant leading slash.
But could that ever happen? dir (or cleandir) has just passed the "is_absolute"
test.

I hope this is useful.

Best regards

Steve

Hello Steve,

Thanks for looking into this in detail and for providing a suggested repair. To be 
even more valuable, if you were able to provide your suggestion as an actual 
patch, perhaps starting with a test case, that would be really nice. There are 
some useful hints on the darcs Wiki, http://wiki.darcs.net/DarcsWiki/DeveloperGettingStarted is perhaps the best place 
to start.

As for your actual suggestion, I believe that others have been doing things 
related to file paths recently, and they may be able to respond. In any case, 
submitting a patch is quite likely to get additional attention.

Thanks again and best regards
Thorkil

Hi Salvatore (or Steve!), 

This is just a courtesy poke as I make my maintenance rounds around the bug
tracker.  Are you still working on this?

(It sounds like we need a test case first)

This bug is still open as darcs 2.3. Fixing it is not really easy, as
there're a lot of special cases with network paths (e.g. \\xxx\yyy).
I'll try to look at it again very soon.

Salvatore

Set to resolved since the test extended to check for this issue (see 
patch2081) succeeds.