Re: Internal Filename Representations (was Re: Summary of I/O related RFCs)

On Sun, Aug 13, 2000 at 02:14:24PM -0400, Chaim Frenkel wrote:
> >>>>> "JH" == Jarkko Hietaniemi <[email protected]> writes:
> 
> >> Please explain why internally it needs to be represented as anything 
> >> other than what the user passed in.
> 
> JH> A flat string is a pain to handle because then you have to know
> JH> in which platform it was originally created: what semantics does
> JH> it obey, how to parse it.
> 
> I don't see how your proposal solves the problem. It still has to
> know what the source/intended/target platform is.

It doesn't fully solve that problem, no.  But it gives the tools
to help doing that: think my proposal as embedding the File::Spec
(and File::Spec, and maybe there's something in MakeMaker we could snitch)
in the core.

> Why do all those acts have to be performed to do an open?

I must not be explaining myself very well...  To do an open() from
Perl the user does not have to do *anything* special.  *Internal*
*representation*.  Not external use.

> Hmm, unless you are planning to have a direct perl <-> os layer. 
> (A rewrite/stealing^wborrowing from sfio?)

One possible stealing arena, yes.

-- 
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen