Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem] wpath and fopen() on windows

On 12 February 2010 07:50, OvermindDL1 wrote:

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Paul wrote:

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On 11 February 2010 06:19, OvermindDL1 wrote:

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On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Paul wrote:

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This sounds like interacting with many C programs that open files could be a big problem...

Take for example, zlib http://zlib.net/manual.html#Gzip

fs::wpath my_path = whatever;

gzFile f = gzopen( my_path.NARROW(), "r" );

??

In zlib's case, I might be saved because I can call gzopen on a file-descriptor, but there are other libraries (one of which I am using) that will only accept a char* filename...

What do I do?

You should submit a patch to fix those libraries to accept a file handle instead of a file name, file handles are universal and work properly everywhere, but yes, the C function calls can break horribly on, say, a Japanese regional Windows computer (of which one of my friends is and has set up, I love testing my programs on it to make sure they still work). Any library that accepts only 8-bit character filenames is broken, they did not take into account regionalization at all and need patches to be fixed (hence they should have something that accepts a file handle since those *always* work, or at the very least accept wide and narrow filenames).

But yes, do know that Windows 2000 and higher uses wchar natively for *ALL* filesystem functions so it can support regionalization.

Ok so ... I have a wpath, and an interface that looks something like this: xyz.openFile( const char* name ); xyz.openFileDesc( int fd ); xyz.openFileHandle( FILE * file ); How do I go from a wpath to a filedescriptor? This doesn't work: fs::ifstream file( path ); xyz.openFileDesc( file.fd() ); ? I've Googled with no luck... thanks, Paul