On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 16:15, Robby Findler <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 8:46 AM, Laurent <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> >> Since there was no right answer, we decided not to pick either of > them. > >> >> The lack of a `read'able form is a weak hint to programmers that they > >> >> need to look closely at the question. > >> > > >> > Thanks, I understand. > >> > Maybe we could distinguish between `read'able and un`read'able paths? > >> > >> But there are no (guaranteed to be) readable paths because the > >> underlying filesystem may use a bizarro encoding. (I think you're > >> unlikely to run into problems with (7-bit) ascii paths, but I don't > >> think that it is guaranteed.) > >> > > > > Hmm, that begins to be complex indeed... > > But I'm stubborn, let's see where that can get: > > I suppose Racket knows what kind of path-encoding exists on the system it > > runs on. > > Then it can say "Sorry, this path is supposed to be readable, but that > has > > no meaning on your bizarro filesystem encoding". > > Then you can focus on most common file-systems and most common `read'able > > paths, like those using plain 8-bit ascii (I think), and have > > #<readable-path:...> that can be read on such common systems, otherwise > > raise a read-error exception (as it does now) on other systems, and also > > have #<unreadable-path:...> which always raise such an exception. > > > > Feature for most is still better than no feature, no? (I'm not talking > about > > the time/energy that that would require to implement) > > Probably 90% of the paths could then be `read'able, but I may be > mistaken. > > Maybe I don't see the entire issue. > > I believe that this amounts to doing option 2 from Matthew's earlier > message. If you know you're not moving to a different filesystem, it > is safe to use path->bytes to marshall things (but not safe in > general). > > In any case, I'm still in agreement with Matthew that if it can fail > in mysterious ways, the "weak hint" is the right design choice (altho > it has been a pain for me in the past too). > > Ok, thank you both for your answers. Laurent
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