* Method semantics.
I beleive the main reason symlinks are in such bad shape on unix is
partly due to semantics.
For example
See Bug:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92329
1. GetTarget is currently implemented w/ a simple wrapper around the
libc call readlink. The problem is that callers accessing this method
think GetTarget will due just that, return the target filepath. The
problem w/ readlink is that a relative symlink will return a relative
path. This breaks the filepicker. So there is a suggestion to perhaps
have a readlink method in addition to GetTarget.
GetTarget to me and (i beleive most callers) suggests resolvet the
ultimate target of the symlink chain.
2. I think ridding AppendRelativePath is a good idea and will solve a
lot of problems. However, GetLeafName and Append need to support '../'
paths on unix.
Example: '/usr/local/www/../../../etc/passwd'
Is a perfectly valid unix file path.
See bug:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55406
I fixed this already for appendrelativepath so it's not a big deal.
The question again is the semantics of what is a valid filepath to mozilla.
* Additional Methods
Get/SetOwner
Get/SetGroup
There is an implementation of this here:
See Bug:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70723
* Performance
nsIFile needs to be a quick and efficient as possible. This should be a
major priority for all platforms.
Will unicode string conversion significantly impede performance and
waste memory?
* Regression
changing attributes like GetParent, GetDirectoryEntries to methods will
break a lot of existing code. Something to think about.
We should cut a branch to do this work on.
--pete
