Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames

Madhu <enometh@xxxxxxxx> writes:

Allegro is the only implementation that does NOT frob the case of
the specified pathname in ANY WAY. I find that useful behaviour.
The fact that other implementations frob the name during translation
is the problem[1].
<snip>
[1] imo because they misweigh the imporatance of what the says about
uppercase in the implementation choices open to them.

I disagree. The intent of the lettercase stuff in the pathnames
specification is to let you say

(make-pathname :name "FOO" :type "LISP" :case :common)

on any Lisp and with any pathname host and get back a pathname that
maps to a filename using the standard file naming conventions of
whatever file system the file happens to be on (i.e., "FOO.LISP" on
TOPS-20, "foo.lisp" on Unix). Failing to map uppercase in LPNs or
common case in MAKE-PATHNAME to lowercase on Unix pointlessly
reinvents the portability problems that common case and LPNs were
intended to solve.

--
RmK
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames
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