This is mostly an admin-level reply...

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 23:43:13 +0000, Petr Ročkai wrote:
> I have written a new Path module for hashed-storage and this bundle
> mostly replaces all darcs (relative) path handling by using that new
> module.

Nice! You may find it useful to search the BTS for issues tagged
FilePath and status not resolved <http://is.gd/efHaI>.

Could you please summarise what's wrong with the current path handling?
(Crappy design or lack of design could be a good answer, but it's nice
to be a bit clear about this).

Are you specifically targeting performance issues (pack/unpack) or code
safety issues (list of path components better than strings to avoid
silly trailing slash stuff, typed paths), and/or something else?  I
think this discussion has taken place over some days on IRC and I
confess I have not really been following along. Sorry!

> Nevertheless, I am sending this as a heads-up
> because this could be somewhat disrputive.

Thanks! Somewhere in the past I think we'd agreed that major pieces of
work should be discussed first to reduce pressure.  But it's easy to
forget to do and I'm glad somebody's still remembering.  (I can't find
an archive for this, unfortunately; perhaps it should go on
http://wiki.darcs.net/Development/GettingStarted)

By the way, you asked about the feasibility of this work entering Darcs
2.8 (what comes after 2.5).  I replied that if we agree in principle
that the work is important and (I'll add now) that the work is "done
enough" to start merging it in, then maybe getting it in early in the
life cycle is best so that we have time to wring out the bugs.

> However, API suggestions would be welcome. I have a vague plan of
> splitting the path code from hashed-storage, bundling it with IO
> functions that take (Path p) => p type paths for convenient usage.

When I mentioned the pathtype package, I think you said it had a huge
API and that you'd rather focus on a limited set of operations that we
can make sure we get right
<http://irclog.perlgeek.de/darcs/2010-08-12#i_2694933>

I'm CC'ing Salvatore because I remember that in Zurich (over lunch), he
was telling me that we really really need to work on the filepath stuff.
Maybe he'll have comments to make.

> Also, support for non-POSIX systems is nearly nonexistent (but to be honest,
> the support in current darcs is not very coherent either). I will work on that
> as well.

One minor detail to remember is funny Windows paths for network shares
(\\something_or_another/blah).  I seem to remember we've never quite
gotten that stuff right.

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
For a faster response, please try +44 (0)1273 64 2905.

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