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

From: Petr Ovchenkov (night-crow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-20 02:38:39

Beman Dawes wrote:

> 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.)

Hi Beman,

I am not expert in Novell too... Unfortunately, Novell experts that I
contacted not work with C++ at all...

>From development point of view Novell NetWare has two parts: programming
client application (application run on Windows [or *nix] computer and
connect to Novell NetWare Server, so such applications development will use
Windows API for Windows clients, etc.) and programming for NetWare server.
In my suggestions I focused on NetWare Server programming.

NetWare Server API is like mix of POSIX / Windows / original

  - filesystem is multiroot, volume label is a identifier, not single letter
    as in Windows:

    SYS:/WORKSHOP/XTESTER.NLM

    Path is case insensitive, path delimiter may be as / or \

  - most operations under files has POSIX-like calls, but NetWare isn't
    POSIX-compliant (but tendency is migrating to POSIX, as I see)

> 
> 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.

It's mix: paths are like Windows variation, system calls more close to
POSIX.

Thanks for you efforts,

   - Petr Ovchenkov