Re: [boost] [filesystem] "leaf"

From: dizzy (dizzy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-05-20 04:52:28

On Monday 19 May 2008 23:37:25 David Abrahams wrote:
> I was just reviewing the filesystem docs and came across "leaf()".  I'm
> sure this isn't the first time I've seen it, but this time I picked up a
> little semantic dissonance.  Normally we think of "leaf" in the context
> of a tree as being a thing with no children. 

Correct.

> An interior node like a 
> directory that has files or other directories in it is usually not
> called a "leaf."  I wonder if this is the best possible name?

But it's not the directory itself (identified by some path object) that is a 
leaf, it is the path component returned by leaf() that is the leaf of a path. 
Because I assume you talk about basic_path::leaf(). For any given path, the 
path components form the path tree and the last component is the leaf of that 
tree respecting the semantics you described. It's not a leaf node in another 
context, but there is no such context implied since we are talking about 
basic_path::leaf(), ie a path leaf not something else's leaf.

> Is there a precedent we can draw on in some other language/library?  In
> python, it's os.path.basename(p).  Perl, php, and the posix basename
> command seem to do something similar.

"basename" could work too but I never had any confusion in my head of what 
leaf() means for a given path object.

-- 
Mihai RUSU					Email: dizzy_at_[hidden]
			"Linux is obsolete" -- AST