Re: [boost] [filesystem] Request forcommentsonproposedrelative()function

Subject: Re: [boost] [filesystem] Request forcommentsonproposedrelative()function
From: Peter Dimov (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-05-18 13:35:47

Yakov Galka wrote:
> I don't follow. The real-world use-case is that I have some 
> config/project/database/install-dir named x = "c:/myproduct", that 
> references another file y, conceptually relative to itself. I think we all 
> agree that if y = "a.txt" then x / y = "c:/myproduct/a.txt" is the desired 
> result. Now, if y = "/windows/a.txt" I would definitely expect the result 
> to be "c:/windows/a.txt", and not "/windows/a.txt" which may end up 
> resolved to "d:/windows/a.txt" if "d:" is the current drive. How "/abc" is 
> any different from "a.txt" in this respect?

Yes, exactly.

Now my point is that if you prefer /windows/a.txt to be resolved to 
c:/windows/a.txt, you should also prefer c:a.txt to be resolved to 
c:/myproduct/a.txt. If, on the other hand, you prefer, as I do, 
/windows/a.txt to be resolved to /windows/a.txt, then you should also prefer 
c:a.txt to be resolved to c:a.txt, and not to c:/myproduct/a.txt.

In other words, /a and c:a are equally absolute.

Treating c:a as absolute and /a as relative doesn't quite make sense to me.