On 18-Sep-09 19:08:15, Jens Oehlschlägel wrote: > Mmh, >> > Point is, I gather, that trailing slashes are removed, e.g., >> > >> > viggo:~/>basename foo/ >> > foo >> > >> > So, not a bug. > > This unfortunately means that we cannot distinguish between > 1) a path with a filename > 2) a path without a filename > > For example in the next version of the ff-package we allow a user to > specify a 'pattern' for all files of a ff dataframe which is path > together with a fileprefix, the above means we cannot specify an empty > prefix "" for the current working directory, because > >> dirname("./.") > [1] "." >> basename("./.") > [1] "." >> dirname("./") > [1] "." >> basename("./") > [1] "." > > Jens Oehlschlägel
I am getting confused by this discussion. At least on Unixoid systems, and I believe it holds for Windows systems too, "." stands for the current directory ("working directory"). Moreover, "./" means exactly the same as ".": If you list the files in "./" you will get exactly the same as if you list the files in ".". Further, "<any directory>/." means the same as "<any directory>/" and the same as "<any directory>", so (on the same basis) "./." also means exactly the same as ".". Therefore the second "." in "./." is not a filename. What the above examples of dirname and basename usage are returning is simply a specific representation of the current working directlory. Forgive me if I have not seen the point, but what I think I have seen boils down to the interpretation I have given above. Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.hard...@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 18-Sep-09 Time: 22:35:34 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel