Re: [Tcllib-devel] More file utilities ?

[<Lar...@re...>]

Tisdag 31 januari 2006 kl 06.27 skrev Andreas Kupries:
> I have (over time) collected a set of convenient commands operating
> on/with whole files which seem to belong directly into either the
> fileutil namespace, or a related namespace, like 'fileutil::FOO'.
>
> Unfortunately I also have trouble to find a proper name for FOO. Note
> that we also might wish to change their names when they go into their
> namespace, to remove redundancies ('file'), or have their final names
> reflect their behavior more correctly (touch, hack_file).

"contents", as suggested, feels appropriate to me (for all except=20
[touch]).

An argument for a separate namespace (and accordingly a separate=20
package) is that code needing access to file contents in this manner=20
don't always needs to manipulate metadata and vice versa, but I may be=20=

oversensitive there.

> Below are the commands collected so far. I would like to get opinions
> on whether these commands should really be put into Tcllib, and if
> yes, where.
>
> 	getfile PATH
>
> 		Returns contents of file. Assumes that file is text,
> 		and in system encoding.

Then this is the same as [docstrip::util::thefile] (which I don't mind=20=

reducing to an alias), except that the latter one takes [fconfigure]=20
options as well.

Also, how is this different from [fileutil::cat]?

>
> 		I.e. loads the file completely into memory
>
> 	putfile PATH TEXT
>
> 		Writes text as the new content of the file.
> 		Note: Does _not_ add a traling \n to the data.

[getfile] and [putfile] makes me think of the functionalities of=20
[tk_getOpenFile] and [tk_getSaveFile] respectively, so I don't like=20
these names. [fileutil::contents::get] and [fileutil::contents::put]=20
feels OK, however. Also, should fileutil::contents be turned into an=20
ensemble, then I'd much prefer

    fileutil::contents get ...
    fileutil::contents put ...


> 	touch PATH
>
> 		Creates empty file at PATH. Deletes any pre-existing
> 		file in this location.

A [touch] already seems to be in fileutil, with an extensive number of=20=

options.

> 	hack_file PATH KEY VAL ...
>
> 		Takes the list of keys and values and applies them to
> 		the contents of the file, via [string map].

Do you mean

	hack_file PATH KEY VAL ?KEY VAL ...?

here? Why not a dictionary argument, as in [string map]?


In addition, the existing [fileutil::foreachLine] should perhaps be=20
mentioned in this group. It too clearly deals with the contents of=20
files.

Lars Hellstr=F6m=