When relative file names are given as argument,

make them relative to the current working dir, rather than
relative to the output tags file, if the latter is in /dev.

2 files changed, 5 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/etc/etags.1 b/etc/etags.1
index 5bb43707f6e..2a84c622e0e 100644
--- a/etc/etags.1
+++ b/etc/etags.1
@@ -58,7 +58,9 @@ table (defaults: \fBTAGS\fP for \fBetags\fP, \fBtags\fP for
 \fBctags\fP) in the current working directory.
 Files specified with relative file names will be recorded in the tag
 table with file names relative to the directory where the tag table
-resides.  Files specified with absolute file names will be recorded
+resides.  If the tag table is in /dev, however, the file names are made
+relative to the working directory.  Files specified with absolute file
+names will be recorded
 with absolute file names.  Files generated from a source file\-\-like
 a C file generated from a source Cweb file\-\-will be recorded with
 the name of the source file.
diff --git a/man/maintaining.texi b/man/maintaining.texi
index 1a8edf13188..7339d6a4f65 100644
--- a/man/maintaining.texi
+++ b/man/maintaining.texi
@@ -445,7 +445,8 @@ well as the files it directly contains.
 directory where the tags file was initially written.  This way, you can
 move an entire directory tree containing both the tags file and the
 source files, and the tags file will still refer correctly to the source
-files.
+files.  If the tags file is in /dev, however, the file names are made
+relative to the current working directory.
 
   If you specify absolute file names as arguments to @code{etags}, then
 the tags file will contain absolute file names.  This way, the tags file