[boost] Re: [filesystem] Operations predicates

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-03 19:25:52

"Thomas Witt" <witt_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
news:d58cm5$mso$1_at_sea.gmane.org...
>
> Hmm, what's the benefit of having symlink_status() and status() ? Wouldn't 
> one function suffice that sets the symlink flag when a symlink is 
> encoutered on the way. I.e.
>
> symlink_flag | directory_flag
>
> identifies a symlink pointing to a directory
>
> symlink_flag | not_found_flag
>
> identifies a symlink pointing to a non existing file/dir
>
> and so on ...

I considered that briefly, but rejected it because status() on POSIX would 
then require two calls; one to stat() and one to lstat().

There is also a nice simplicity in the current design; the functions always 
returns a value with one and only one flag set.

Neither of those are really killer arguments, so if others think it would be 
better to have a single status() function, I'd like to hear their arguments.

Thanks,

--Beman