[Haskell-cafe] Re: File path programme

[Peter Simons]

Sven Panne writes:

 > Hmmm, I'm not really sure what "equivalence" for file
 > paths should mean in the presence of hard/symbolic links,
 > (NFS-)mounted file systems, etc.

Well, there is a sort-of canonic version for every path; on
most Unix systems the function realpath(3) will find it.
My interpretation is that two paths are equivalent iff they
point to the same target.

You (and the others who pointed it out) are correct, though,
that the current 'canon' function doesn't accomplish that. I
guess, I'll have to move it into the IO monad to get it
right. And I should probably rename it, too. ;-)


Ben Rudiak-Gould writes:

 > The Read and Show instances aren't inverses of each
 > other. I don't think we should be using Read for path
 > parsing, for this reason.

That's fine with me; I can change that.


 > I don't understand why the path ADT is parameterized by
 > segment representation, but then the Posix and Windows
 > parameter types are both wrappers for String.

No particular reason. I just wanted to make the library work
with a simple internal representation before doing the more
advanced stuff. It is experimental code.


 > It seems artificial to distinguish read :: String ->
 > RelPath Windows from read :: String -> RelPath Posix in
 > this way.

I think it's pretty neat, actually. You have a way to
specify what kind of path you have -- and the type system
distinguishes it, not a run-time error.

Peter