Walter C. Pelissero wrote:
Raymond Toy (RT/EUS) writes:
> > > I also now see there are a whole bunch of issues, like how should
> > > "..a" be parsed? Is it name = "..a", type = nil, or name = ".", type
> > > "a", or something else? My head hurts.
> >
> > I suppose anything goes as long as you are consistent. After all the
> > concept of file type in the pathname is alien to the Unix filesystem.
> > Though, I can immagine, different behaviours from different Lisp
> > implementations may cause portability issues.
>
> Converting strings to pathnames has never been portable. If you want
> portability, you need to use make-pathname directly.
Well, there are situation where you can't use MAKE-PATHNAME yourself.
DIRECTORY, for instance, will use it for you. That BTW was the source
of my problems. Knowing in advance what goes in type and what goes in
name, I believe, does simplify writing portable code.
Where can't you use make-pathname yourself? What do you mean directory
will use it for you? (directory (make-pathname :directory '(:absolute)
:name :wild)) works for me.
I would like to know how directory was the source of your problem. Was
it because directory returned a list of pathnames for which no
namestring could be printed, like "..."? Or something else.
BTW, I've applied your patch. It looks good, and actually fixes the
issue I raised about "..a". It is now :name ".", :type "a". This is
ok. It also passes a simple testsuite of pathnames, but some more
testing needed.
Ray
