[Boost-users] boost::filesystem problems

From: Carlo Wood (carlo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-17 07:52:33

A few months ago I started to write my first multi-platform application.
In the hope to be shielded from all kinds of filesystem specific issues,
I started to use boost - also for the first time - mainly because of
of boost::filesystem.

However - I have found that it doesn't shield me from a LOT of filesystem
specific things.  In the meantime I was in the need of writing six additional
functions that are filesystem specific:

std::string native_file_string(fs::path const&);
void copy_file(fs::path const& source_file, fs::path const& target_file);
void chmod(fs::path const& filename, bool readonly);
bool is_readonly(fs::path const& filename);
void rename_file(fs::path const& source_file, fs::path const& target_file);
size_t get_file_size(fs::path const& filename);

Today I ran into a very serious problem.  Hopefully it is just me who
is making a stupid mistake (however unlikely that may sound ;) but it sure
seems like a huge bug in boost::filesystem of a magnitude that not only amazes
me but will also force me to stop using boost::filesystem if this is true.

The reason that I didn't find this problem earlier in the pasts months
is because so far I've done all development on GNU/Linux - and only recently
have started to actually try and get things to work on cygwin.

The reason I subscribed to this list is in the hope to find Beman here,
is he reading this list?  My hope is to start a public discussion about
boost::filesystem - problems, improvements, missing features etc.

I will sent a separate mail for the 'serious bug' that I just mentioned,
because it isn't 100% sure yet that this is actually a bug ;).

-- 
Carlo Wood <carlo_at_[hidden]>