[boost] Filesystem Library Review

From: Bill Seymour (bill-at-the-office_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-23 09:30:22

I vote for inclusion of the Filesystem Library in Boost.

Thanks to Beman for all the great work.

I'd like to add my voice in support of some additions to the
library that others have already asked for as well:

- Finer-grained exceptions.

- Support for wide-character paths, even though it wouldn't
  be portable to all C++ implementations.

- Some kind of "current directory" concept.  I agree completely
  about the danger of global variables; but as a practical
  matter, many programs require this concept.  Doesn't C++
  inherit that part of the so-called "spirit of C" that says
  "trust the programmer"?

Also (I'm not sure whether this has already been asked for),
I'd like to see some way to name a particular device or other
place that files might be stored.  This could map to volumes
on MVS, mounted devices on Unix, drives on MS-DOS/Windows, etc.
"Volume" might be a good generic name for the concept.

--Bill Seymour