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Strange use of FrontEnd`FileName

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg71664] Strange use of FrontEnd`FileName
• From: "Philipp" <Philipp.M.O at gmail.com>
• Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:48:46 -0500 (EST)

In the Wolfram documentation (Services & Resources > Mathematica >
Kernels and Programming) there is a method "How can I automatically set
Mathematica's working directory to the same directory containing my
notebook?"
(http://support.wolfram.com/mathematica/kernel/interface/notebookdir.html)

The statement is,

SetDirectory[ToFileName[
 Extract["FileName" /. NotebookInformation[EvaluationNotebook[]], {1},
   FrontEnd`FileName]]]

Would somebody kindly explain to me as to why Extract wraps the
extracted directory list in FrontEnd`FileName before ToFileName is
applied?

Nominally, it shouldn't work. The ToFileName documentation indicates
that the directory argument can have "only" a String or List head.

Cheers,

Philipp.


P.S. I realise FrontEnd`FileName has HoldAll attribute. This only leads
to an additional question, why the directory list needs to be passed to
ToFileName unevaluated. P.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Strange use of FrontEnd`FileName
    • From: "厉正吉" <zhengji.li@gmail.com>
  • Re: Strange use of FrontEnd`FileName
    • From: "Chris Chiasson" <chris@chiasson.name>