on Tue May 20 2008, dizzy <dizzy-AT-roedu.net> wrote:
On Monday 19 May 2008 23:37:25 David Abrahams wrote:
I was just reviewing the filesystem docs and came across "leaf()". I'm sure this isn't the first time I've seen it, but this time I picked up a little semantic dissonance. Normally we think of "leaf" in the context of a tree as being a thing with no children.
Correct.
An interior node like a directory that has files or other directories in it is usually not called a "leaf." I wonder if this is the best possible name?
But it's not the directory itself (identified by some path object) that is a leaf, it is the path component returned by leaf() that is the leaf of a path.
Paths don't have leaves. They have beginnings, endings, and middles. They are linear.
Because I assume you talk about basic_path::leaf(). For any given path, the path components form the path tree
Ok, technically a -> b -> c -> d is a tree, but it's a degenerate tree. That's not a very useful view, and just complicates everything conceptually.
and the last component is the leaf of that tree respecting the semantics you described. It's not a leaf node in another context,
It's not a leaf node in any context other than in the subtree of the actual directory tree that only consists of the listed path components.
but there is no such context implied since we are talking about basic_path::leaf(), ie a path leaf not something else's leaf.
That logic sounds a bit circular to me. Maybe I'm missing something. -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com