Re: [boost] Novell NetWare support (filesystem), patch

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-19 09:29:53

At 05:18 AM 6/16/2003, Petr Ovchenkov wrote:

 >I made attempt to use boost's filesystem on Novell NetWare (Metrowerks
 >CodeWarrior compiler). See attached patch to boost 1.30.0 below.

Hi Petr,

Thanks very much for the patch!

I definitely want to make Boost.Filesystem work with NetWare, but as 
submitted I've got some concerns. I'm not familiar with the platform, so 
some of these concerns may be pretty stupid.

Reading the patch, I see one or two specific differences from POSIX or 
Windows, but basically operational functions are treaded as if on a POSIX 
platform, while paths are treated as if on Windows.

Does that mean the Windows API is not available? Or was there some other 
reason for not choosing the Windows API for operational functions?

(Mixing POSIX operational functions with Windows paths wouldn't be my first 
choice as I'm afraid of subtle bugs in hard to anticipate corner cases. 
That's why the current implementation doesn't just use the POSIX functions, 
even when available on Windows.)

Because the platform is apparently so similar to POSIX and/or Windows, I'd 
prefer not to treat it as a distinct platform. Rather, I'd like to treat 
BOOST_NETWARE as a variation on BOOST_POSIX and/or BOOST_WINDOWS.

My belief is that approach will reduce maintenance problems. Maintainers in 
general won't have to think in terms of three platforms, but just the 
current two platforms. The number of lines of code that has to be changed 
is much reduced, and I think that is a sign that treating Netware as a 
variation is a better approach.

Once I get your answers to the Windows API questions above, I'd like to 
make the changes to the source code, and then send it to you for testing 
before actually committing to CVS.

Thanks,

--Beman