[boost] Re: [filesystem] Operations predicates

From: Thomas Witt (witt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-03 19:46:05

Beman,

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

Hmmm .. mildly convincing.

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

In this case the fact that it is a bitmask type seems to be kind of 
misleading. Isn't the whole point of a bitmask type to be able to have 
multiple flags set at once?

> 
> 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.

I am up in the air about it. On the one hand it seems wrong to me to 
have a suboptimal interface only because posix has one, on the other 
hand performance might be an issue.

Thomas

-- 
Thomas Witt
witt_at_[hidden]