Re: Ada.Directories problems, a summary

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

On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 22:33:27 +0000, Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jan 2009, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>|---------------------------------------------|
>|"[..]                                        |
>|                                             |
>|[..] Further                                 |
>|there is nothing in common in FTP/ZIP/SOCKS5.|
>|                                             |
>|[..]"                                        |
>|---------------------------------------------|
> 
> Data could be obtained from a number of sources, including via FTP or
> zipped or tunneling through a firewall with Socks (or from a
> compressed file in a zip archive on an SFTP server accessed through
> Socks.

Data sources is vague, because "data" can mean anything. Without behavior
data is nothing. Semantically FTP/ZIP/SOCKS5 and HDD/CD/Flash represent
very different cases.

FTP is a file transfer protocol. ZIP is a content conversion format. SOCKS5
is a tunneling stuff. I don't see a common abstraction for them, unless see
below.

> You could say that there is nothing in common in a compact disc and a
> hard disk and a floppy disk and a Flash stick (which people call a
> Flash disk due to habit because disks have been so commonly used for
> data storage).

All these serve as media to various file systems. The file systems (all)
are abstracted in Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Directories etc.

One could talk about a file system with, say, a ZIP compressed file is a
medium. If the target OS supported this, then Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Directories
would certainly do, for free. But that is not what the Ivan meant.

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