Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames

On Sep 28, 6:30 pm, Rainer Joswig <jos...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<7c397d97-563b-44b4-9fab-4b85e5636...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
 Marco Antoniotti <marc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Sep 28, 4:37 pm, Richard M Kreuter <kreu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Madhu <enom...@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.

Mentioning TOPS-20 in *any* discussion involving pathanames is beneath
contempt. :)

What's wrong with TOPS-20? I see a boom in TOPS-20 systems
on the Internet. For example:http://www.panda.com/tops-20/

;-)               <<<<-----------------<<<<

It is also ITS that should not be even thought of when talking about
Pathnames :-)




Besides, lowercasing in Unix is wrong as the file system is case-
sensitive.

I thought the case-sensitivity depends on the file
system (and some other magic). If you mount a case-insensitive
file system on a Unix box it does not necessarily get suddenly
case-sensitive. For example Mac OS X 10.5 is certified UNIX and has both
case-sensitive and case-insensitive file systems. If
I export one of those via NFS and someone mounts it
on her/his Solaris box it does not magically case-sensitive
or does it? Mount a PC disk on a Unix machine. Is the
file system suddenly case-sensitive? I doubt that. Mount
a SMB server on a Unix box? Case-sensitive? Probably not.

Yes. Of course. As a matter of fact, this was one of the early
comments on my document at http://common-lisp.net/project/names-and-paths;
i.e., the "host" should be thought of as either "file system" or "host
+fs".

As per the real and complex question "is the file system I see case-
sensitive or not?" my stand is that this should not be dealt with with
the rules of "19.2.2.1.2 Case in Pathname Components" but in a more
explicit way. In particular, for the cases you mention I do not think
it is possible for any CL implementation to be able to deal with it in
a sensible way using the :CASE parameter.

Cheers
--
Marco

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames
    ... the specified pathname in ANY WAY. ... lowercasing in Unix is wrong as the file system is case- ... I thought the case-sensitivity depends on the file ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames
    ... on any Lisp and with any pathname host and get back a pathname that ... lowercasing in Unix is wrong as the file system is case- ... mentions that customary case for Unix is supposed to be lowercase. ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
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  • Re: parse-namestring and logical pathnames
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