[saga-rg] Fwd (schuett at zib.de): Re: SAGA Strawman API

[Thorsten Schuett]

On Friday 20 May 2005 19:18, Andre Merzky wrote:
> Q: Why does the package NameSpace need a interface NSDir?
>    Shouldn't that be named Directory?
>
> A: It WAS named directore before, but we thought Dir to be,
>    well, shorter, w/o loosing meaning.  Hmm, I prefer Dir
>    for beeing shorter, but have no strong opniion about it.
>    Others?
NS is redundant and the meaning of Directory is more obvious than Dir.

> > - Irgendwie sind die Flags merkwürdig. Ich könnte ein Flags-Array mit
> > Create und NoCreate erzeugen. Es würde dann zwar ein Exception geworfen,
> > aber sowas kann auch der Compiler überprüfen. Lass doch die NoXXXX Flags
> > weg und mach flags zu einem set<openFlags>. Dann gibt es auch keine
> > doppelten Flags. Und wenn ihr schon numerische Werte für die Flags
> > einführt, gestalte sie doch so, dass man auch ein einen Integer und
> > Bit-Arithmetik in einem Binding verwenden kann.
> > enum openFlags{
> > Create = 1,
> > Excl = 2,
> > Truncate = 4,
> > Append = 8,
> > Lock = 16
> > };
>
> Q: Flags are strange: I could create a flagg array with both
>    'Create' and 'NoCreate'.  Well, thats would give an
>    exception, but thats something which could be catched by
>    the compiler.  You could leave out the NoXXX flags, and
>    change the flags to set<openFlags>.  the there are no double
>    flags.  And if you go for numeric values, you could do
>    the usual bit arithmetik thingie...
>
> A: I agree.  I can't for sure remember the rationale for the
>    current notation -- but I think we left that to the
>    language binding.  So, in C we would do what you suggest.
Actually, you can't do the bit thingie in C. If you specify numerical values 
for the different flags, all bindings have to follow this specification.

> Q: Interface Attributes: strange name, isn't that rather a
>    description or such?  removeAttribute is not fleshed out.
>    You can't have multiple values for one key - a pity.
>
> A: Hmm, maybe we didn't transport the idea well enough.
>    Think physical files: attributes would be for example:
>    file size, file type, last mod time, owner, ACL etc.
>    You don't have two values for size.  If you have more
>    than one item to one key (acl), you have vector
>    attributes for these.
Ok, my fault. You can have multiple values for one key using the 
xxxVectorAttribute-Calls.

Regarding the name of the interface: I associate with "Attribute" one 
Key-Value-Pair but your interface represents a set of attributes. Thatswhy I 
think that the name is strange.

Thorsten