* dpuu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2008-11-21 19:00]:
> The definition of C<chown> includes the statement that it's not
> available on most system unless you're superuser; and this can
> be checked using a POSIX incantation. I was wondering if it
> would be reasonable to provide this as a method on the chown
> function, so that a user could say:
>
> if &chown.is_restricted {
> ...
> }
> else {
> chown $user, $group <== @files
> }
As has been mentioned by others this is a bad idea. All atomic
operations on filesystems boil down to attempting an operation
and dealing with the fallout if it fails. Attempting to check
whether an operation will succeed prior to attempting it almost
invariably leads to broken code. (Worse: subtly broke code, in
most cases.)
The API you propose does not seem to me to shorten code at all
and is likely to lead to problematic code, so it seems like a
bad idea. Interfaces should be designed to encourage people to
do things correctly and to make it hard to even think about the
nearly certainly wrong way.
Regards,
--
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>
