Re: [MacPerl-Porters] [ macperl-Bugs-472413 ] pwd result different from 5.20r4

Hello Thomas,

understood. I remember the lengthy discussions but lost track somewhere ...

But if I think of the new directive thus

  everything ending with a colon is a volume or a directory
  everything without a colon is a file

I wonder why I get these results:

  perl -e 'print "-> is a dir" if -d "Macintosh HD:Desktop Folder:"'
  -> is a dir
  perl -e 'print "-> is a dir" if -d "Macintosh HD:Desktop Folder"'
  -> is a dir

My 5.20r4 programs failed when using the `pwd` results but
they were ok. when testing for directories.

Will the file testing results change in future version?
I could live of course with the "you have to have colons at the
end of a directory specification on Macs" rule if I knew the
set of functions which insist on it.


Axel


Um 20:51 Uhr +0200 18.10.2001, schrieb Thomas Wegner:
>this is not a bug, it's a feature. You will see, that most modules dealing with file specifications now behave like this. I've detected this way back in February, and Chris told me that we are going to standardize on always ending in a colon for a directories. Although a trailing ':'  is not necessary for directories, it makes sense when it comes to distinguish files from directories literally, without consulting the filesystem (e.g., some of the File::Spec::Mac routines make use of this). Furthermore, a volume name (kind of directory) requires a trailing colon as you know, so it's better to always have a colon appended.

Chris' remarks were:
>Yes.  This is not a bug.  If anything, the 5.2.0r4 behavior 
>is a bug.  We have decreed that all directories returned 
>under MacPerl shall end with a trailing colon, as that is 
>proper and good.  This causes some breakage, alas, but it 
>cannot be helped.  The breakage is minimal and easily fixed.