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I'd like to use Windows (10) native Emacs (spacemacs) and ledger (both installed via Chocolatey). The finance layer from spacemacs provides integration for it, however when I tried to run a simple register report it gave me the following error:

Report: reg
Command: "ledger" -f "c:/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger" reg
=================================================================================================================================================

Error: Cannot read journal file "/cygdrive/c/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/c:/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger"

I assume this is because the chocolatey installed package is cygwin based.

Do You have an idea how to get rid of this problem?

phils
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Zsolt Botykai
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  • Do you have cygwin installed? – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 10 '18 at 10:14
  • @ctrl-alt-delor no I'm not (Windows 10 has `WSL` with which I'm rather happy (but don't want run an X server that's why I'm using native windows emacs). – Zsolt Botykai Sep 11 '18 at 17:59
  • WSL. Is that Windows subsystem for Linux? Does it use `/cygdrive`? – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 11 '18 at 18:53
  • @ctrl-alt-delor, sorry for the incomplete info, yes, `WSL` is Windows Subsystem for Linux, and no it doesn't use `/cygdrive` (I don't have `cygwin` installed. When You download `ledger` to Windows, it includes some of the required DLLs from `Cygwin` to be able to run. – Zsolt Botykai Sep 13 '18 at 07:05
  • According to my analysis and my partial test [the method in my solution](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/44738/2370) should work for you. Please test it and give a short report here. Naturally if you don't I must delete it. – Tobias Sep 17 '18 at 22:58
  • You should add version information (emacs, ledger-mode, and ledger) and a backtrace for the error condition. – Tobias Sep 21 '18 at 15:14
  • Note there is also the solution https://gist.github.com/ngleb/944346a67960776371aab74149edf38c in https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/42199/ledger-in-org-babel-blocks-uses-incorrect-path-data-in-windows-10 – Tobias Sep 21 '18 at 17:04

2 Answers2

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The path you passed (c:/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger) is not a valid cygwin file-path, it is a MS-windows file-path:

It will look like a relative file-path to cygwin, so will be appended to the present working directory. I assume that /cygdrive/c/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/ | c:/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv is your present working directory.

If ledger is a cygwin application, then pass it a cygwin file-path. /cygdrive/c/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger

After testing the above, if you need to pass MS-windows paths then write a wrapper, possably in bash, to use cygpath to translate the path from MS-windows to cygwin.

ctrl-alt-delor
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  • Thanks for the suggestion, I'm rather sure it is caused by `ledger` expects a `cygwin` style path. And You gave me a workaround idea which I'm going to impement soon, however I'm also interested in a real emacs-y solution. – Zsolt Botykai Sep 11 '18 at 17:58
  • Before trying to make a work-around, test it: manually pass it the path `/cygdrive/c/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger`. You can then use the program `cygpath` to translate the path. Using a regex substitution may also work, however there may be (there are) some subtleties that cygpath knows about. – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 13 '18 at 08:12
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    `c:/Users/USERNAME/Dropbox/Priv/2018.ledger` is a special valid cygwin file path. It is parsed by `path.cc` within `cygwin1.dll`. The short-circuit code is: `if ((isdrive (src) && isdirsep (src[2])) || *src == '\\') goto win32_path;` – Tobias Sep 13 '18 at 12:25
  • @Tobias you may be half right. IT is probably not the `cygwin.dll`. However it is probably not emacs (as OP says this is a native emacs). It probably is `Ledger`. Therefore the discussion in this answer will still be valid. – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 13 '18 at 12:26
  • If `Ledger` is compiled as cygwin app and if the misinterpretation of the path as relative path is caused by `Ledger` then it is a bug of `Ledger` since it is not properly using the cygwin api. In that case a bug report is in place. – Tobias Sep 13 '18 at 12:31
  • @Tobias, but the bug report would have to go to the person that ported it to cygwin. There may be no but in the original code (it only need a bit of extra code, to work in Microsoft environment. As Cygwin can not mitigate all incompatibilities.) – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 13 '18 at 15:21
  • It is https://github.com/ledger/ledger/issues/1188. – Tobias Sep 13 '18 at 16:11
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I don't use ledger-mode but I am pretty sure that the following advice-add will help you. The code is only partially tested (up to make-process in ledger-flymake). Please test whether it is working for you.

It converts the drive specification \`[[:alpha:]]: in buffer-file-name of your ledger buffer selective for function ledger-flymake into /cygdrive/\1 where \1 stands for the drive letter.

(defun run-with-cygwin-file-path (fun &rest args)
  "Let-transform `buffer-file-name' to cygwin-format and run FUN with ARGS."
  (let ((file-name (buffer-file-name)))
    (if (string-match "\\`\\([[:alpha:]]\\):" file-name)
    (let ((buffer-file-name (replace-match "/cygdrive/\\1" nil nil file-name)))
      (apply fun args))
      (apply fun args))))

(advice-add 'ledger-flymake :around #'run-with-cygwin-file-path)
Tobias
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  • According to my analysis and my partial test this method should work for you. Please test it and give a short report here. – Tobias Sep 17 '18 at 22:55
  • Hi @Tobias could You please advise on how to apply it to ledger-mode? I wasn't able to make it work by enabling flymake-mode in my ledger buffer then evaluate Your solution in the scratch buffer. – Zsolt Botykai Sep 18 '18 at 07:27
  • @ZsoltBotykai What happens if you proceed the way you described? Same error message as in the original question? – Tobias Sep 18 '18 at 07:52
  • yes, the very same. – Zsolt Botykai Sep 18 '18 at 19:13
  • @ZsoltBotykai Ready for a short debug session?: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/83346/windows-10-native-spacemacs-install-cant-call-cygwin-binary-ledger-with-pro Please join the linked discussion room. – Tobias Sep 18 '18 at 19:19
  • Hi @Tobias, thanks for Your help! I'm on a mostly offline teambuilding event until Friday noon, but will execute the debug session on the afternoon! – Zsolt Botykai Sep 20 '18 at 17:49