[SAGA-RG] spec

[Thilo Kielmann]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2007 at 09:23:41PM +0100, Andre Merzky wrote:
> Options:
> 
>  (B) Add versions of the methods copy, link, move, and
>      remove from ns_directory that accept a string parameter
>      describing a pathname, relative to the CWD, (possibly)
>      containing POSIX-style shell wildcards
> 
>      Correction 1: also for permission_allow/permission_deny
>      Correction 2: remove the limitation to relative paths
> 
> 
>  (C) Allow '*' as wildcard in URLs (in the path element part).
>      Add an expand method for more elaborate wildcard
>      expansion, which accepts a string and returns a list of
>      URLs.  Looping is in user space.
> 

> I am not sure if we came to a closure on 'Correction 2', but
> I think that Ceriels answer ("if you need abs paths, then do
> a 'cd()' to somewhere where you can use rel paths") is a
> rather inelegant workaround for a limitation which is not
> too well motivated, IMHO.

The motivation for relative paths is: an absoute path immediately
becomes a URL, (well, a URL-shaped string) where we cannot have wildcards.
This would LOOK LIKE allowing both strings and URLs for abolute paths,
utmost confusing to the user (because of the subtle differences in acceptable
syntax although both LOOK pretty much identical).
It also feels like feature bloat.

I still consider 'C' a bloody hack because even the '*' violates
URL syntax according to the RFC.

> 
> So, please raise your voice now or hold your peace for
> evermore!

Raised ;-)


Thilo

> PS.: sorry for this biased mail ;-)
Sorry for this biased reply ;-)
-- 
Thilo Kielmann                                 http://www.cs.vu.nl/~kielmann/