[MacPerl] Slashes (Was: Using UNIX style filenames with MacPerl)

[aml@world.std.com (Andrew M. Langmead)]

At 16.30 +0200 98-05-18, Gerald Young wrote:
>On 1998-05-18 03:44, L. Brian  Matthews <blm@halcyon.com> contributed:

>Obviously the DOS version of Perl can handle UNIX style "/" pathnames,
>whereas the underlying filesystem (DOS) requires the "\" as dir seperator.

This ability in Perl to treat '/' as '\', is it present in all DOS/Windows
Perl ports?

No, the feature is in the operating system itself. Perl in all cases
just passes the filename to the c functions that pass them to the
operating system call/interrupt/trap. In MS-DOS (including the version
that comes with Window '95) and Windows NT, the operating system
itself treats either slash interchagably. (Unfortunately. some other
programs, like COMMAND.COM, uses the forward slash as an option
separator. So it mis-parses any message that tries to use a forward
slash before it attempts any operating system call.)

I just thought of one way to end this though. How about if someone
makes a module that overrides the built in open() (and I guess
readdir(), unlink(), and all the other calls that take pathnames) and
converts them (in whatever way they feel is the "right" way to handle
all of the absolute/relative/volume/etc issues) from into legal
macintosh file names.

Then they can use their module and no one will suggest to touch
MacPerl anymore.

Obviously, whoever wants to make this module has to believe there is a
right way to convert Unix filenames to mac ones. I certainly don't.
-- 
Andrew Langmead

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