RE: [Boost-users] Re: Feature request for boost::filesystem

From: Delfin Rojas (drojas_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-06-30 13:26:14

Well, my point is precisely that this class does _not_ work everywhere. In
an OS with a Unicode file system I cannot use the boost::filesystem library
to represent a path to a Unicode directory. If the characters in the name of
the directory are in the current locale then it is possible to use the name
but if I am using an English locale and the name of the directory is in
Japanese then I cannot point boost::filesystem to it using an ANSI string. 

However this is not the main problem. The main problem arrives with
iteration. There is even a point in the boost::filesystem documentation that
says an open issue with the library is what happens when a Unicode file is
found during directory iteration. As you can understand, if I cannot
retrieve the names of all the files in the directory when the directory is
iterated then the library is not working for me. If the library would
attempt to convert the name to ANSI and I am not running the right locale
then the conversion would produce garbage.

So what I ask is a library that works everywhere, just like you say.

I understand your point about POSIX file systems but since the library is
compiled for Windows _or_ for POSIX systems I think it would be possible to
compile for single char strings or double byte strings (UTF16). Windows
systems solve this problem with the concept of TCHAR, a type that is defined
as a char or wchar_t depending on a preprocessor definition. Then,
boost::fylesystem::path could accept std::basic_string<TCHAR> instead of
std::basic_string<char>. That would solve the problem and everybody would be
happy ;)

Thanks

-delfin

-----Original Message-----
From: boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]
[mailto:boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Vladimir Prus
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 12:44 AM
To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
Subject: [Boost-users] Re: Feature request for boost::filesystem

Keith MacDonald wrote:

> I decided not to use boost::filesystem, because it does not support
> Unicode. There's a thread in the archives about it, explaining that
> Unicode was ignored, because it was specific to Windows, and this is
> intended to be a
> portable library.  However, I think the developers have missed the point
> that the Windows file system uses Unicode natively, so boost::filesystem
> is
> not really portable to it.  A more useful solution, in my opinion, would
> be one that allowed the user to choose which char type to use, like
> boost::regex.

And what would POSIX system to with basic_path<wchar_t>? I don't know
exactly what Beman thinks on the matter, but I'd prefer some single class
which works everywhere. Maybe, you could summarize all use cases you need
and post them to the developer's list?

- Volodya

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