[comp.emacs] on the use of emacsclient

wbaker%comet.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Wendell Craig Baker) (01/02/91)

I use emacs as a my central editor server when I am in the X11 environment.
To do this I use emacsclient alot and it works very well in most
cases.  In fact, coupled with DEC's dxue file browser, the
emacs/emacsclient combination provides a point-and-edit style of
interface that is very convenient.

I am, however having a few problems with emacsclient and long
filenames and I am wondering if anyone else is having the same
problem, and if so, what the fix/workaround is.

I am on Ultrix 4.1 under MIT's X11R4 but the problem has occurred
throughout all the Ultrix series (2.1, 3.1 etc...).

The symptom are:

- emacsclient, when given a very long filename (~80 characters) to 
  edit fails to edit the file.
- The emacs indicates that it has received the file (the *server*
  buffer contains an entry for the new file) but there is no buffer
  allocated for the file.
- C-x # releases the waiting emacsclient program but the emacs then beeps
  and says ``Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth.''   I have
  tried quadrupling the value of this variable, but other variables break.

To reproduce, setup the server in emacs and execute the following from
the shell:

emacsclient
/net/comet/users/wbaker/source/src/bnw/common/src/boot/common/src/bin/ma
akeskeleton/makeskeleton.1

I have seen it happen on much shorter filenames, but this is my
example today.

I have picked apart emacsclient and, although the standard emacsclient
does almost no error checking on it socket writes/reads, the client
side is working properly (no funny socket things are ocurring).  The
server receives all the data correctly; it seems that the emacs is
dropping the ball somehow.

Any ideas on where to search next for the problem?



			    Wendell C. Baker

			    Berkeley CAD Group
			    U. C. Berkeley
			    Berkeley CA 94720

			    wbaker@comet.berkeley.edu