Ada.Directories problems, a summary

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

After experimenting with Ada.Directories I collected the issues I think
must be addressed to make Ada.Directories more usable:

1. Name encoding. Either String versions should be UTF-8 or else replaced
with Wide_Wide_String ones.

2. Name canonization / comparison functions. Presently it is impossible to
compare files by names because the same file may have potentially an
infinite number of names.

3. Fake children "." and ".." should have special File_Kind
(Virtual_Directory_File, for example). Else it is impossible to traverse
the directory tree in a portable way.

4. There should be a variant of Start_Search without the Directory
parameter, in order to enumerate the roots of the file systems. For
example, to find drive letters under Windows, network shares, mount points
etc.

5. The behavior of Exists must be specified for the case of mountable
volumes. Presently GNAT implementation pops a message box under Windows.
This should be outlawed.

6. Is_Mountable / Is_Removable functions should be provided.

7. Version number in addition to Containing_Directory, Base_Name and
Extension. (Files have version numbers under VMS)

Any comments?

P.S. Happy New Year!

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de