On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Martin Wille <mw8329@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
Sorry for the bikeshedding, but I really don't like parent_path. The problem I see is related to symbolic links. "parent" suggests a parent directory, even though parent_path() might return something that is not the parent directory of a link target. I think the naming should reflect the fact that we're operating on names only, not on an actual filesystem structure. So, IMHO, "basename" is a better choice than anything containing "parent".
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So, "basename()" and "parent_of()" should be considered operations on different domains (path names vs filesystem).
I'd say the problem you mention needs only be considered in the filesystem case where you have the interpretation of a path as referring to a symlink. If we're just considering the path, then the parent of the path /x/right1/right2/bar is /x/right1/right2. If you want the filesystem interpretation, then you want path("/x/right1/right2/bar")/"..", which will act equivalently to /x in operation functions. I think, as a decomposition function, the name parent is sufficiently clear.