Re: [MacPerl] Converting From Unix to Mac

[Georges Martin <georges.martin@deboeck.be>]

Paul,

there is already a File::Spec module written by Kenneth Albanowski 
(kjahds@kjahds.com) and available on CPAN :

>This module is designed to support operations commonly performed on file
>specifications (usually called "file names", but not to be confused with the
>contents of a file, or Perl's file handles), such as concatenating several
>directory and file names into a single path, or determining whether a path
>is rooted. It is based on code directly taken from MakeMaker 5.17, code
>written by Andreas KE<ouml>nig, Andy Dougherty, Charles Bailey, Ilya
>Zakharevich, and others.

I started to use it to maintain one code base for Linux, Win32 and 
MacPerl. The only missing part at this time is the File::Spec::Mac 
implementation.

It would not be hard to do it but I haven't found the time until now.

Georges Martin

>At 7:57 PM -0800 2/16/98, Brian "L." Matthews wrote:
>
>}
>} |On a simpler concept, I am working on hiding path problems by using a
>} |variable for the path deliminator, and setting the variable based upon
>} |environment variables.
>}
>} For a general purpose module, this would be necessary but not
>} sufficient. For example, a////b on Unix is very different from a::::b
>} on a Mac. And what does a path of / mean on a Mac? And I'd expect
>} a Homogeneous.pm to "do the right thing" with paths like /dev/tty or
>} /tmp/xxx.
>
>Exactly.  My own thinking along these lines has been something like
>
>$relative = Path::relative("MacPerl","lib");
>$absolute = Path::absolute("usr","local","bin","perl");
>
>with reverse routines that parse platform specific paths as well.  You
>can't use ".." as up; the safest would be to use undef.  You've got to
>reconcile Unix's "anything but a /" with Mac "anything but a :".  You've
>got to guard against names that are too long, you've got to allow "." and
>".." as plain file/directory names on anything but Unix  (and I don't mean
>converting them to ":" and "::"; "." and ".." are legal names).  I could
>write these for Unix/Mac pretty quickly, but now add in *all* the other
>operating systems that Perl runs on.
>
>The join(":",split("/")) works ok for the typical path, but if you're going
>to "write and forget" conversion routines, you'd better guard against all
>the atypical cases as well.  Recently on the Alpha list it was discovered
>that Alpha simply wouldn't work right if there were "funny" characters in
>the names of folders in the path.s (I don't remember at the moment, but I
>think it was funny characters in the absolute path, which means that you
>can break Alpha simply by moving it.)  This must be a Tcl limitation, but I
>consider it a serious bug.  In as much as possible, Mac users should be
>free to name their files/folders what they want to.


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Georges Martin                       <mailto:georges.martin@deboeck.be>
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 "We reject kings, presidents, and voting.                    IETF Credo
  We believe in rough consensus and running code."     Dave Clark (1992)
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