Re: [boost] boost::filesystem file restrictions

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-15 15:23:36

Beman Dawes wrote:
> At 01:40 PM 8/14/2003, Peter Dimov wrote:
>  >
>  >I am not sure that it should be the responsibility of the path
>  class to >enforce some notion of portability. Wouldn't it be more
>  appropriate to >defer the portability check, if any, to the point
>  where the path is >actually used in a filesystem operation?
>
> That's too late. A real path is often made up of some native elements
> (which the portability check doesn't apply to) and some portable
> elements (which the portability check should be applied to).
>
> The earlier the error can be detected, the better. Also, a path is
> only constructed once, but may be use multiple times.

[...]

> That would be easy if we accepted the native platform as the default,
> and portable cases had to be specially coded. But my interest is in
> portable semantics as the default.

I must be missing something. What is a "portable" path useful for? A
portable path _grammar_ (element sequence separated by '/') is certainly
useful, it allows me to write portable _code_ that deals with paths.
Portable path _data_ is a different story.