[boost] FileSystem Library: Why aren't wide-character names supported? (R evisited)

From: Misha Bergal (mbergal_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-22 04:21:15

After reading the "FileSystem FAQ" and the final review discussion I could
not figure out the whether the current rationale, design and implementation
of FileSystem library support the scenario below?

Win32 C++ application accepts directory path as user input and counts the
number of files and subdirectories in it. It seems to be a reasonable level
of functionality to be supported by FileSystem library.

The current implementation for Win32 doesn't seem to support it. The problem
is that in NTFS files and directory names can (and often do) have Unicode
names. So the conversion from Unicode name of the directory to
filesystem::path will screw up some of the characters in directory name.
Consequently, when FileSystem library would try to iterate thru the
directory because Win32 API would not able to find it.

I believe that Win32 is not the only platform which allows for Unicode
names. The implementation for Win32 can be made to return 8.3 (short) names
in case of Unicode name, but I am not sure that it is possible on other
platforms which allow for Unicode names.

Thanks in advance
Misha