Re: [Boost-users] Re: boost::filesystem problems

From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-21 05:02:26

> > > It's a big thing to me.
> >
> > It's clear there are two usage models, then, because I have the same
> > experience as Martin does.  It's unfortunate that the filesystem
> > library is biased towards one model and makes the other one difficult
> > to work with.
>
> I don't consider an extra constructor parameter 'difficult'.  Sure, maybe
the
> default should be flipped around -- I'd be fine with that. I give much
credit
> to Beman for listening on this issue because personally I found a large
lack
> of support for handling the portable path issue in languages 'perl' that
> supposedly provide good cross-platform libraries.

I agree, I would be very much against there being two (or more) path types,
think of a path as a kind of handle to an object in the filesystem:  the
issue is what the constructor of path should take as an argument:

* narrow or wide character string.
* native or portable name.

BTW, I've found the paths are usually constructed from a native path string
in only one or two place in an application (for example when parsing the
command line), all the rest is portable stuff.

One thing I am tempted to complain about though: path's checking that a name
is legal and portable maybe goes to far - if you are dealing with files that
you know already exist, then manipulating that path shouldn't trigger the
error checking.

John.