Re: [Scheme-reports] Ballot item #113 "directory contents"

[Alaric Snell-Pym <alaric@x>]

On 01/11/11 14:36, Alex Shinn wrote:

> In particular, directory-files is in a sense more primitive than
> file-exists?, since the latter can be implemented (inefficiently)
> in terms of the former.

As I'm currently reading a book on algorithmic information theory, I
can't help but point out that given file-exists?, directory-files can be
written to (in finite time!) find all files with finite names by just
trying all possible strings into file-exists?... and if we know the
maximum filename length for our OS, we can even terminate in finite
time, having guaranteed to find all files ;-)

> Technically you could define directory? as:
>
>   (define (directory? x) (file-exists? (string-append x "/.")))
>
> (modulo separator concerns), but the point is well taken.
> WG2 will include a full filesystem interface, and in WG1 we
> have to decide if we want to cherry pick any functions,
> include everything, or continue to be as useless as R5RS
> in this respect.

> One of the rationales in the first ballot pointed out that
> just adding file-exists? and delete-file was silly.

I agree... I voted to push the whole lot to WG2 (although I'm never
quite sure, in practice, what the difference between "wg2" and "no" is;
it's up to WG2 to make their own decisions as to what to include). I
think we should ignore the filesystem (other than as a shadowy place
that maps filenames to places where ports can go - which could just be a
static list of special device names in an embedded system - but the
structure of which is vague beyond that), or go the whole hog and
specify a proper filesystem interface, like java's File class or CL's
delightfully baroque pathname objects.

>> A secondary problem, which may indeed be considered well out of scope
>> for both WG1 and WG2 is that of:
>>
>>  - (portably) determining a directory entry separator character with
>>    which to form a string to pass to open-directory (or directory-
>>    files or whatever) when wishing to descend into said directory

Aye; my preference, rather than encouraging too much string arithmetic,
is to provide functions to convert lists of strings to and from paths in
the local convention (including mapping special relative-path
conventions like ".", "..", and a leading "/" as appropriate). But let
WG2 ponder on that. I'll be sure to follow their deliberations and bend
John's ear with my opinions in due course, should I see them straying
from the path of sanity ;-)

ABS

--
Alaric Snell-Pym
http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/alaric/

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