CVS now contains a branch "i18n" of the filesystem directories: * Class templates basic_path, basic_directory_iterator, etc, support narrow, wide, and user-defined path types. Typedefs path, directory_iterator, etc, are provided, so most existing code continues to work. * Name checking has been moved out of class basic_path, so it no longer gets in the way of those not using the name checking facility. Deprecated versions of various functions are provided to preserve existing code. * The need to explicitly identify native format paths via special constructors has been eliminated, simplifying casual use of the library. Deprecated versions of those constructors are provided to preserve existing code. More detailed documentation is available in the i18n CVS branch at <boost-root>/libs/filesystem/doc/i18n.html. Most of the other documentation has also been updated to reflect the changes. Current issues with the i18n branch include: * Testing has been limited to Intel 8.1, Metrowerks 9.3, and Microsoft 7.1 on Windows, and GCC 3.3 on Mac OS X. How much effort to put into broken compilers is going to be a real issue - internationalization may have to be disabled, and that is a lot of work. * Some tests (particularly in operations_test.cpp) are commented out. Minor issues need to be resolved and the tests reactivated. * Two or three of the less important doc files haven't been updated yet. * The convenience header and source code hasn't been converted yet. * The UTF-8 conversion facet header and source is duplicated. Need to identify and fix the issues that prevented the boost/detail version from being used. * The "// TODO" notes in the code need to be revisited, issues fixed, and the notes eliminated. * Testing on Windows 9X would be helpful, and issues fixed or documented. * Backed up issues and patches from the mailing list need to be addressed. * Windows tests need to be run on a FAT filesystem to see what issues arise. All of the Windows analysis and design effort so far has gone into NTFS, so there may be critical problems with filesystems that only support narrow paths. * The POSIX wpath implementation assumes that UTF-8 is always the operating system's preferred external path encoding. If any Boost users are concerned about other encodings, please let me know. * A timing test is needed, particularly for directory iteration. There is concern over excessive copying by basic_path conversion functions, so need to test if speed is a real problem in a realistic application. Any comments would be appreciated (but please look at the docs first, as a lot of effort went into rationale and trying to answer anticipated questions). My plan is to pause development for a while, both to allow time for comments to be made, and also so I can attack a backlog of non-Boost work that has been building up. --Beman