David Abrahams wrote:
Michael Marcin wrote:
That is annoying but it seems like a trailing slash at the end of a path would be enough to differentiate paths to files from paths to directories.
I don't like the idea of adding "file or directory" semantics to paths. Paths are just paths. What about symlinks? What about devices? Should we find a way to represent that information in a path too?
I agree. It is a firm principal of the design that "paths are just paths". None of the path member functions go to the file system. There might not even be a file system; paths are sometimes manipulated by programs for purposes other than immediate use. A trailing slash at the end of a path is preserved in case a particular application distinguishes that as a special case. But no Boost.Filesystem functions do so. --Beman