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From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-03 17:29:14


At 10:20 AM 10/2/2004, Walter Landry wrote:

>If I so desired, I could mount HFS+, BeFS, JFS, FFS, BFS, ADFS, FAT,
>VFAT, NTFS, ext2/3, XFS, UMSDOS, Reiserfs, ISO 9660, and UDF on my
>machine. Which one is "native"?

Any of those can be "native", since "native" refers to the grammar used by
paths rather than which type of file system is mounted.

>If the intent is make sure that all paths can actually be accessed on
>the machine, then you don't need to do any checks. The operating
>system does that for you. If you are not actually opening files, then
>perhaps you don't need this check anyway?

That's correct, however, some applications wish to check cases where files
are not being opened, or are only opened on certain conditions.

>Besides, doing any checking implies a (perhaps mild) performance hit,

That's true, although the hit is so minor it is not nearly as important a
consideration as the other points you bring up.

>and I don't want to have to jump through hoops to get rid of something
>I don't need.
>
>> Either of those would be breaking changes for some current programs
which
>
>> use the library, and we would have to figure a way to deal with that.
>
>A compile-time option? Users who want the old behavior can compile
>with BOOST_FILESYSTEM_PORTABLE_DEFAULT defined.

That would help the transition. Also, programs which currently change the
default to "no_check" would not absolutely have to be changed; the line of
code changing the default becomes redundant but is functionally harmless.

Thanks,

--Beman


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