Re: [boost] [filesystem] Major changes before standardization

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-12 21:16:16

Beman Dawes wrote:
> It might be messy to make the single path class approach work if
> Windows is viewed as a dual rather than wide O/S.
>
>   path p;
>   p /= "foo";
>   if ( some_bool ) p /= L"kühl";
>
>   if ( exists( p ) ) ... // use wide or narrow API depending on
> some_bool
> I guess path objects could keep track of whether or not they had ever
> been modified by an argument other than a char string, and use the
> Windows wide API. Seems messy...

It's worse. Some versions of Windows (9x) are narrow-minded, but you don't 
know that at compile time. ;-)

You pretty much have to treat Windows as a dual OS; it's impossible to 
choose a native character type until the program is run.