BlindAnagram schreef op 28/05/2020 om 11:00:
On 27/05/2020 23:39, Roel Schroeven wrote:
I find no hints of adding a backslash at the end to indicate directories.
If you can point me to convincing evidence in the documentation I'll
change my mind.
And if you find a counterexample, I will change mine.
It's hard to prove a negative.
The only thing I can find is that there are cases where doing operations
on files fail if there's a backslash at the end, whereas operations on
directories do work with a backslash at the end; but those also work
without the backslash. Even then, the distinction between what operation
is done is never decided by the backslash; only if it is decided that
you're doing something file-related and there is a backslash, then it
fails. It's not like it turns into a directory-related operation. Ergo,
adding backslashes practically accomplishes nothing.
What really defines what kind of operation will be done, is
- which function you call
- or the flags you pass to the function
- or for some operation when working with existing objects, the type of
those existing objects
Also, if we're going to look in the other direction: we can ask Windows
for information about objects on disk, and it will tell use the type
using flags, not by adding backslashes. We can use e.g. FindFirstFile /
FindNextFile / FindClose. dwFileAttributes in the WIN32_FIND_DATA
structure will have FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY set for directories and not
for normal files. cFileName won't have a trailing backslash. If the
semantics were as you say, I'd expect Windows to at least using them itself.
In summary, IMO:
- Windows allows trailing backslashes for directories.
- Windows doesn't allow trailing backslashes for files.
- Windows doesn't use trailing backslashes for distinction between files
and directories.
- And so I don't see how/why adding a backslash makes any real difference.
--
"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a
friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger."
-- Franklin P. Jones
Roel Schroeven
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