Specifying a subdirectory in the argument of :tangle: effect only non-interactively

Question

Recently, I added to this answer to the question “How to specify a directory to tangle all code blocks into”, the following comment: “AFAICS, specifying a subdirectory in the argument of :tangle doesn't have any effect”.

At least that is what I see with the following property:

#+PROPERTY: header-args :padline no :mkdirp yes :tangle my/sub/directory/myfile.foo :exports both :noweb yes :eval always

and tangling triggered with org-babel-tangle (C-c C-v t), the file myfile.foo is created in the current directory and not in the subdirectory my/sub/directory/.

But I discovered that if the tangling is run non-interactively (in batch mode, outside of Emacs) with the command:

emacs -Q letgut.org --batch -f org-babel-tangle --kill

then the file myfile.foo is, as expected, created in the subdirectory my/sub/directory/.

Do you understand the reason for the difference between these two ways of tangling and how to make org-babel-tangle behave like the command above?

Answer 1

[These are my original comments made into an answer -- but note that there is a mysterious mode change that is so far unexplained.]

I cannot reproduce the problem: interactively tangling the file creates the subdirectory my/sub/directorory and creates the file myfile.foo in that subdirectory.

Check what the value of default-directory is (with C-h v default-directory), make sure that you can create the subdirectory in that directory (mkdir -p my/sub/directory from the shell - you can delete it afterwards to try again) - this should catch e.g. bad permissions that don't let you create the subdirectories or the file.

Also, the #+PROPERTY: keyword line needs to be active: if you just added it, make sure you do C-c C-c on it to activate it; or close the file and reopen it.

You can do M-x org-babel-view-src-block-info on a source block to see e.g. whether the header-args property is set to what you think it is set.

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The OP reports that the header-args property was not set. But doing C-c C-c on it to activate it, changes the major mode of the file from Org to LaTeX. It's not at all clear why that happens: I'm surmising setup problems, but I have no data to even theorize how that could happen. Presumably, closing and reopening the Org file also resolves the problem and does not cause the mode change - but only the OP knows for sure at this point.