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Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 00:30:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Elfyn McBratney <elfyn-cygwin AT sickpuppy DOT co DOT uk>
To: "LA Walsh" <law AT tlinx DOT org>, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: RE: Repost, different list...File::Spec, Cygwin, Syntactic vs.
    Semantic path analysis
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
X-Originating-Ip: [195.92.67.76]
Message-Id: <20030106083008.4C1334385@sitemail.everyone.net>

>	If a user calls the 'normalize' function, it should convert it
>to "\" -- since that is the OS standard/default -- HOWEVER...

I tend to agree that as windows uses the back-slash as a default path
seperator so should `normalize' but also in the interest of
compatability with windows 95 (in dos mode) as it doesn't support the
forward-slash path seperator.

>	In "cmd.exe", you can type 'dir \' or you can type 'dir "/"'. 
>You have to quote the "/" so it won't be interpreted as a switch
>character -- but the underlying OS seems to not really care which you
>use and neither should Win32.

A bit OT but dir does not support the forward slash pathsep even when quoted:

  C:\WINNT>dir "/"

   Directory of \\

  File Not Found

Although the win32 api supports both one takes more work as paths containing forward-slashes are converted to back-slashes*. I know this is being petty but if different style paths cause problems surely it would make sense to follow the standard the OS follows?

Elfyn
elfyn AT exposure DOT org DOT uk


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