Re: Interpretation of extensions different from Unix/Linux?

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:iavqqy3ue6ne$.uxihdofxdalx.dlg@40tude.net...
...
> Latin-1 is a limitation that makes impossible to write OS-independent
> programs. BTW, I didn't check it but I suppose that the GNAT 
> implementation
> is not even Latin-1, it is in fact UTF-8, at least under Linux. So it is
> broken twice. Once per design, once by the implementation to fix broken
> design.

Actually, the use of UTF-8 in this way is the recommendation of the ARG. We 
have no plans of changing any of the file handling routines away from 
String. We may add some Implementation Advice to make it clear that 
implementations are advised to support UTF-8 encoded file names.

>>> 3. Even so it provides no way to get the name of the root
>>
>> Because it is OS neutral, and there is no independent concept of a root.
>
> An OS-neutral Ada.Directories would provide enumeration of roots. Any
> usable Ada.Directories must have the concept of roots nodes.

Enumeration of roots is impractible on Windows, because every possible file 
share would have to be included in such a list (including any that don't 
have permissions to read). That would be impossibly slow, and pretty 
pointless to boot. It also would cause problems with removable disks 
(Windows gives a failure if you try to enumerate an empty floppy disk). I've 
dealt with those headaches from our compiler installer, and I wouldn't want 
to force them on other users of Ada.

If you can't do it reasonably in Windows, it surely doesn't belong in 
Ada.Directories.

                           Randy.