Re: [Sml-implementers] compilation management

[Dave B. <da...@ta...>]

At 10:10 21/09/2001, Matthias Blume wrote:
>> We could even go so far as to require that no files
>> in a given library should be case-insensitive-equal. ...
>
>This I wouldn't do -- not as a requirement that we burn into a language
>spec.  The main reason for my saying this is that we should not have to care
>about such OS- and filesys-specifics at all.

One thing to consider is whether to provide any support for directories in
the file paths.  If so, then either we need a convention for directory
syntax, or people may have to rewrite their project files when they move
between OSs.  (Although I believe Windows now recognises Unix-style
directory syntax -- i.e forward slash).  If we do adopt such a convention,
then we are already part way to limiting the names that can appear.

>Otherwise there will be no end
>to it:

That depends; portability isn't all or nothing.  As a concrete proposal,
suppose that files had to use the following character set:
[a-zA-Z0-9_+.-], they had to be case-insensitive, and directories were
indicated with forward slashes.  This would be portable across all versions
of Windows (including CE, and including both FAT and NTFS), all versions of
Unix/Linux, and (I think) MacOS.  Projects might not port to OS's that
limit the length of file names beyond the user's choice of names, or OS's
that have other limitations; in these cases users would have to rewrite the
file names.  So this achieves a level of portability that is pragmatically
useful, and is never worse than the alternative.

Possibly the most annoying effect of this limitation would be on people who
want to write filenames in an non-English language.  But they already have
to write all their identifiers in ASCII.

I'm not strongly wedded to this argument, I just think it's worth considering.

Dave.