RE: [boost] Filesystem library updated

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-07-15 20:45:17

At 07:04 PM 7/15/2002, Tom Harris wrote:

 >Two comments:
 >	Win32 calls are not prefixed by `::`, whereas the POSIX calls are,
 >is there a reason for this?

With the Win32 calls, there is no chance of a reader mistaking a Win32 API 
name for something else.  With the POSIX implementation, namespace 
boost::filesystem functions are sometimes implemented with POSIX functions 
of the same name.  Even when the compiler can keep the names straight, I 
thought :: would make it clearer to the reader.  That was the theory, 
anyhow.

 >	The boost::filesystem::rename() function cannot move a directory to
 >a different drive on Windows as it uses the ::MoveFile call. I think that
 >the only way of doing this on Windows is to copy all files and 
directories
 >manually. Perhaps just document this limitation, rather than trying to 
code
 >workarounds. Apparently the POSIX rename() can also fail if the 
directories
 >are on different filesystems, but I am no POSIX expert and this might be
 >hearsay.

Carl Daniel wrote:

 >Files can be moved between filesystems on Win32 by using SHFileOperation
 >instead of MoveFile.  Personally, I'd rather have the limitation 
documented
 >& keep the filesystem library insulated from the shell API.

I think the three of us are in agreement that implementations should not 
try to resuscitate an otherwise failing rename() by heroic efforts like 
switching to a copy strategy.  I've changed the docs to indicate this.

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

--Beman