Re: Directory listings and path names

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

My thinking on URLs is that as a "Uniform Resource Locator" they could be
used as a kind of "File System" - directory tree structured or not. Hence,
there might be some desire to do things like copying resources, deleting
them, etc. I don't know of an OS that specifies its files with URL syntax -
but given "The Net" and similar directions in computer software, it seems
like something that might come up.

I don't object to getting an Ada package that deals only with more
traditional tree structured directories or only a few common file systems.
What I'm suggesting is that in the process of talking about such a creature
that possibly some thought be given to reasonable future needs. If its
useful, people will want to expand its capabilities.

Obviously, unless Ada develops its own abstraction for a "File System" or a
full-blown OS, (something that could be mapped to some/most existing OS's -
similar to how Tasking is a kind of abstraction that can be mapped to most
OS multitasking facilities) anything it does to connect to such services is
going to be rather system dependend and non-portable. Trying to come up with
such an abstraction would be a big job. Anything less is still more than we
have now, so its not something I'd discourage.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:flF38.35525$%51.1922466961@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
>   The whole idea of directories and paths presumes a tree structure.
> URLs are more like unique names, where '/' is just another character.
> "a.com/b/c*.htm" is not meaningful as a URL (unless of course the server
> wants to give "b/c*.htm" some meaning).  Tree structured directories
> date from the days of tree structured databases.  They will eventually
> disappear.  Then people will want standardized packages to handle
> URLs and organize related URLs.  In the meantime, let's standardize at
> least the simplest, least common denominator, directory walking routines.
> IMHO