Greetings, I've started using boost::filesystem recently, and I'm mostly very happy. One thing bothers me, though. Why does it implement any restrictions, by default, on what kind of files it allows? From the documentation:
The following are not valid name char's: x01-x1F, <, >, :, ", /, \, |, *, ?. Although these characters are supported by some operating systems, they are disallowed by so many operating systems that they are banned altogether. I also noticed that you can't open a directory named "." or "..", though I think "./" and "../" both work. Files starting or ending with spaces also don't work. I understand that I can (painfully) work around it by using a different context, but I don't understand why boost::filesystem wants to restrict me to a set of filenames that are portable. Isn't that a bit too much handholding? I don't mind having an is_portable() command or something similar, but it is incredibly annoying to have to abide by someone else's filename restrictions. I found a bug report at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=107586&aid=776146&group_id=7586 and a discussion about this (though it focused more on "?" and "*") at http://lists.boost.org/MailArchives/boost/msg46073.php In particular, Beman Dawes said: What is very explicitly not a supported use case is for providing simply a new but still non-portable interface to non-portable operating system API's. If that is the need, just call the non-portable operating system API's directly. If we were to take that to the extreme, then boost::filesystem should only accept 8.3 filenames. What Beman seems to be missing is that he has made an extremely nice interface to filesystems. It is much simpler and easier to use within C++ than the non-portable API's. But it is unneccesarily difficult to look at whatever files the user may have created. This makes the library much less useful than it might otherwise be. It is a trivial change to fix this (just take out the check), and I've done this in my own copy. I'm attaching a patch with this email. Thanks, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- /home/boo/arx/arx/src/boost/{arch}/++pristine-trees/unlocked/boost/boost--ar x/boost--arx--1.0/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/boost--arx--1.0--patch-6/./libs/filesyst em/src/path_posix_windows.cpp 2003-07-18 13:22:15.000000000 -0400 +++ /home/boo/arx/arx/src/boost/./libs/filesystem/src/path_posix_windows.cpp 2003-07-31 10:37:51.000000000 -0400 @@ -128,17 +128,6 @@ { // error checking functions --------------------------------------------/ / - - bool generic_name( const std::string & name ) - { - return name.size() != 0 - && name.find_first_of( invalid_generic ) == std::string::npos - && name != "." - && name != ".." - && *name.begin() != ' ' - && *(name.end()-1) != ' '; - } - bool posix_name( const std::string & name ) { return name.find_first_not_of( valid_posix ) == std::string::npos @@ -308,13 +297,6 @@ # endif ); - if ( context == generic && !generic_name( name ) ) - { - boost::throw_exception( filesystem_error( - "boost::filesystem::path", - "invalid name \"" + name + "\" in path: \"" + src + "\"" ) ); - } - m_path += name; } _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost
