Re: [boost] Re: the first version of abstract path manipulation c lass (interface)

From: Ken Hagan (k.hagan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-30 07:48:08

From: "John Maddock" <John_Maddock_at_[hidden]>
> 
> However on unix systems you can mount a case insensitive filesystems
> within a case sensitive one, throw in symbolic links and the whether
> comparison is case sensitive changes with each part of the pathname:
> so with /foo/bar the foo part may be case sensitive and the bar part
> case insensitive.

Also, at least in the Windows world, a mounted filesystem will either
store names on the disc in "the current code page" (MS-DOS and early
Windows) or as "Unicode" (FAT32 and NTFS). For this reason, semi-
serious manipulation of files and file systems on NT/2K/XP is done
with wchar_t rather than char. The latter is simply blind to a range
of names that might exist. (There's another reason too, since the
char-based APIs can't handle paths longer than 260 characters, and
this limit can be exceeded by UNC-style names.)

(*Really* serious use, like backup, also has to worry about names
that are legal under POSIX but which are invisible to Win32. Perhaps
we don't want to go that far!)