Re: [Caml-list] RFC: basename, dirname, PR#4549

[Markus Mottl <markus.mottl@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I think the difference will mostly matter for code only that requires
human input of paths, whether in a prompt or through a configuration
file, and even there it would be rather unlikely to encounter such
paths.  Big deal, users can change their input easily.  Having done my
fair share of path mangling, I guess most applications that generate
paths internally only, e.g. to walk through a directory hierarchy, are
safe.  It would seem highly unusual that anybody added an extra slash
in code accessing files within a program.  I personally prefer
standard conformance.

Regards,
Markus

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 11:29, Damien Doligez <damien.doligez@inria.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to get some comments from the OCaml community at large about
> the problem raised in http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=4549
>
> In a nutshell, the problem is that our version of basename and dirname
> are not exactly the same as the Open Group's definition.
>
> We can easily implement the standard behaviour for basename and dirname,
> and it seems desirable, but there is a catch: we will have to change
> the specification of the standard library slightly.
>
> Currently, we specify this:
>
>   [concat (dirname name) (basename name)] returns a file name
>   which is equivalent to [name]. Moreover, after setting the
>   current directory to [dirname name] (with {!Sys.chdir}),
>   references to [basename name] (which is a relative file name)
>   designate the same file as [name] before the call to {!Sys.chdir}.
>
> With the Open Group basename and dirname, this becomes false for
> names that include some trailing slashes, because such slashes
> are removed by basename.  This means that a name "foo/bar/"
> becomes "foo/bar" when put through
>  [concat (dirname name) (basename name)]
> and opening "foo/bar" may succeed if it is a file, while
> opening "foo/bar/" would fail.
>
> I would like to know if anyone relies on the precise behaviour
> documented in the standard library, and for everyone else, would
> you prefer the old behaviour or the new (standard) behaviour?
>
> -- Damien
>
>
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-- 
Markus Mottl        http://www.ocaml.info        markus.mottl@gmail.com