[Haskell-cafe] RE: ANN: System.FilePath 0.9

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi

> I disagree. It would be trivial to create a new module that exported new
> definitions of file IO actions that operated on "GoodPath" instead of
> "FilePath," transparently delegating to the original readFile/writeFile/etc.
> until they could be removed in the future. This would also support the
> "SuperFilePath" idea you mentioned.
Yes it would, but because readFile etc. are in the prelude its not
easy to not have them included. If someone was to write a
System.SuperFilePath module and an IO.SuperFilePath module that would
be great! I have considered it myself, but unfortunately don't have
enough time, at the moment.

The advantage of moving to FilePath now is that its entirely
non-breaking for anything, and once we have SuperFilePath, it makes it
easier to migrate because (hopefully!) there will be less functions
proding directly at FilePath's as strings.

> Another thing I thought of would be a "canonicalPath" IO action
> (canonicalPath :: FilePath -> IO FilePath) that returns a FilePath that
> implements case-preserving-case-insensitive matching. For
> example, if there is a file named "Hello There.txt" in C:\, then
> (canonicalPath "c:\hello there.txt ") would give "C:\Hello There.txt").
Yes, thats a really good idea - and in fact when I wrote a FilePath
module for Visual Basic (a long long time ago), I had such a function
in it. I will make sure I add that tomorrow.

> I think that the xxxDrive functions should only be exported from
> System.FilePath.Windows and no System.FilePath since it is unclear as to how
> they should be used effectively by cross-platform software.
I would say they shouldn't be used at all, but it is true that
Posix.setDrive "c:" is a bit poorly defined. I will think this idea
over, maybe the drive functions shouldn't be exported under either the
general one or under the Posix, but it breaks a nice symetry that the
library has...

I have added a wiki page discussing System.FilePath,
http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/FilePath, which is more a personal todo
list, but if people want to summarise/propose things then feel free :)

Thanks

Neil