Why are my compilations executed in the parent of `default-directory`?

Question

When I run compile, I'm seeing a strange behavior where the shell command is being executed in the parent of default-directory rather than default-directory itself. Here's an example of what I'm doing:

(let ((default-directory "~/projects")) (compile "pwd"))

And here's what shows up in the *compilation* buffer:

-*-mode: compilation; default-directory: "~/projects/" -*- Compilation started at Sun Jan 18 14:03:45 pwd /Users/sixtynorth Compilation finished at Sun Jan 18 14:03:45

As you can see, on the first line of *compilation* the default-directory is correct. But when pwd actually executes I've been changed to the parent directory. This behavior seems consistent across different directories, commands, etc.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on? I've poked through the compile code, but nothing looks suspicious. I've also looked in my shell configuration for anything that might be causing problems, but again nothing jumped out at me. Any thoughts or ideas would be great.

Answer 1

The value of default-directory has to end with a slash.