Re: [boost] Re: [filesystem] new functions proposals

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-04-30 08:55:24

At 10:08 AM 4/27/2003, Pavel Vozenilek wrote:
 >
 >"Trevor Taylor" <xju_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
 >news:3EAB5928.4000407_at_telstra.com...

 >> So it sounds to me like the :blat is *not* part of the extension. It
 >> sounds like the NT file name is made up of three parts: name, extension
 >> and "stream".
 >>
 >> In which case I think it is fine to have functions extension() and
 >> change_extension() - they just should not report or modify the stream
 >part.
 >>
 >> To implement them I guess I'd need to know whether the file name was an
 >> NTFS filename, and then how to reliably locate the "extension" part?
 >>
 >Functin DeviceIoControl() with parameter IOCTL_DISK_GET_PARTITION_INFO 
can
 >do it. It is available on NT/W2K.
 >
 >Does it make sense to take into account NTFS drives for Win95/98 (from
 >www.systeminternals.com) or Linux NTFS drivers?

There are a lot of file systems in this world. It isn't uncommon for the 
heavy-duty operating systems to handle many different path formats. IIRC, 
OS/390 (and C++ compilers for it) handles six different path formats.

The purely lexical approach taken in Vladimir's proposal is a practical way 
to meet a common need in portable C++ programs. Let's just leave it at 
that, and not worry that it won't handle certain non-portable path formats.

Thanks,

--Beman