[boost] boost::filesystem::path frustration

Subject: [boost] boost::filesystem::path frustration
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-01-24 20:56:58

I'm finding that boost::filesystem::path seems to be a strange mix of
different beasts, unlike any entity we have in the STL.  For example,
when you construct it from a pair of iterators, they're expected to be
iterators over characters, but when you iterate over the path itself,
you are iterating over strings of some kind (**).  Even though, once
constructed, this thing acts sort of like a container, it supports none
of the usual container mutators (e.g. push_back, pop_back, erase) or
even queries (e.g. size()), making it incompatible with generic
algorithms and adaptors.

In particular, this comes up because I'm trying to find the greatest
common prefix of two paths.  I thought this would be easy; I'd just use
std::mismatch.  But even once I've found the mismatch I don't see any
obvious way to chop off the non-matching parts of one of the paths.  I
end up having to resort to some really ugly code (or I just haven't
figured out how to use this thing correctly).

Why should paths be so different from everything else?  I think, if the
design is actually right, some rationale is sorely needed.

Also, 

* (**) the docs don't say what the value_type of path::iterator is.  A
  string value?  A range that becomes invalid when the path is
  destroyed?  Ah!?!  How surprising; inspecting the code shows it
  iterates over paths!  A container whose element type is itself is very
  unusual!

* the docs claim you can construct a path from a "A C-array. The value
  type is required to be char, wchar_t, char16_t, or char32_t", but
  doesn't say how that array will be interpreted.  From the wording I
  might have assumed it accepts a CharT(&)[N] and the length of the
  input is taken as N, but inspecting the code shows it expects a CharT*
  and interprets the source as null-terminated.

Thanks,

-- 
Dave Abrahams
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