David Abrahams wrote:
Michael Marcin wrote:
Doesn't leaf serve 2 functions? If the path points to a directory it returns most derived directory
It does not return a directory. We don't have a type that can represent a directory. We only have paths and strings.
(to make a bad analogy to class hierarchy). If the path points to a file it returns the filename.
No. In either case it returns the name of the thing that the path points to.
Sorry I meant name of a directory or name of a file. From the filesystem doc's index page: "leaf() returns a string which is a copy of the last (closest to the leaf, farthest from the root) file or directory name in the path object." I don't believe any of the functions need to touch the filesystem with the possible exception of parent which could be relaxed to just return path + "../" since at least on windows if you ../ yourself above the root of your current drive you just end up at the root of the current drive. Or do you mean that you can't determine if it is a path to a file because files can look just like directories if they have no extensions and directories can contain periods? 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. Thanks, Micahel Marcin