[boost] Re: [filesystem] size() on directory?

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-02 12:14:47

Beman Dawes wrote:
> How should size( "foo" ) behave if "foo" is a directory?
>
> 1) Throw. The function should be renamed file_size().
>
> 2) Return 0. Directories don't strictly speaking have a size.
>
> 3) Return the number of entries in the directory. Directories are
> really
> just containers; so of course they have a size.
>
> (1) and (3) seem most attractive to me; (2) seems useless for
> directories, and probably misleading.
>
> The problem with (3) is that for many (most?) operating systems the
> implementation would have to iterate over the directory to get a
> count, and this difference in complexity compared to getting the size
> of a file (which is usually constant complexity) could be pretty
> surprising.
>
> I'm inclined to go with (1), naming the function "file_size", and
> then add
> a function later to get the number of entries in a directory. But
> only if there is enough demand. I don't want to clutter up the
> library with a lot
> of seldom used functions that can be trivially written as user code.
>
> Thoughts?

I agree with your conclusion. Asking for the file_size of a directory is
just wrong. One should throw exceptions when a member function is used on an
object which is not applicable to the actual type or state of the object.
That way it is clearest that the call is incorrect. Anything else masks the
incorrectness of the call and one does not want to do that.