implementation of file-related modules

[Hal Daume III]

For the last, see:

  http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2003-July/012314.html

and replies.

I still want *something* rather than nothing.  Nice would even be:

  makePath :: [FilePath] -> IO FilePath

which concats the directories and puts the appropriate separator between
them.

On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 20:18, Isaac Jones wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I've been looking over some of the file-related modules such as
> System.Directory and System.Posix.{Directory,Files}, and I have some
> questions.
> 
> * Excuse my ignorance of Windows, but I'm assuming that the
>   System.Posix module does not exist on Windows?  Is windows the only
>   system where this is the case?
> 
> * I've noticed that System.Directory.renameFile behaves differently
>   between ghci, nhc, and hugs.  In particular, ghc is the only one who
>   complains when it's a directory.  Is there anything evil about using
>   renameFile to rename a directory?  It would be nice if they all
>   acted the same, particularly since renameDirectory is conveniently
>   located in the same module.
> 
> * Speaking of which, in System.Posix, the Directory and File
>   operations are broken up into separate modules.  It is a little odd
>   to have file related functions in System.Directory.  Should they be
>   moved?
> 
> * Some languages have a means of building paths in a portable way.  It
>   would be nice if we had access a file separator (like "/" in unix
>   and "\" in windows).  These would probably belong in the
>   System.Directory module?  Java (for instance) allows access to these
>   things through the java.lang.system.getProprerty function.  That
>   function takes a string and returns a string:
> 
>     "path.separator" Path separator (for example, ":")
>     "file.separator" File separator (for example, "/")
>     "user.home"      User home directory
>     "user.name"	     User account name
> 
>     // might come in useful:
>     "os.arch"    Operating system architecture
>     "os.name"    Operating system name
>     "os.version" Operating system version
> 
>   Now using getProperty for this makes sense in Java, but for Haskell,
>   I would expect to have functions for these.  I'm not sure where all
>   of them would go.  Is there any roadblock to implementing something
>   like this?
> 
> * Another item that would be useful in the System.Directory class
>   would be some kind of config file path.  On Debian, that would be
>   "/etc", on some systems, it might tend to be more often
>   "/usr/local/etc".  (I'm not sure if there's a good way to abstract
>   the difference between a user config file and a system config file.
>   User config files tend to be in ~/ and start with a dot whereas
>   system config files end up in /etc, and don't start with a dot.)
> 
> These last few points are rather related in that they are both
> dependent on particular operating systems, and a means of abstracting
> away system-specific details in order to write more portable code.
> Are any of these good ideas?
> 
> 
> peace,
> 
> isaac
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-- 
 Hal Daume III                                   | hdaume at isi.edu
 "Arrest this man, he talks in maths."           | www.isi.edu/~hdaume