On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Rob <robrimmer@atrico.net> wrote:

Whilst using filesystem::path (v1.37) , I found I wanted the following functionality:

Typedefs added for reference and const_reference and a push_back function, as follows

typedef string_type& reference;

typedef const string_type& const_reference;

inline void push_back(const_reference path) { *this /= path; }

This would allow use of std::back_inserter with stl algorithms such as

Boost::filesystem::path src("dir1/./dir2");

Boost::filesystem::path target;

Std::remove_copy(src.begin(), src.end(), std::back_inserter(target), ".");

These seem like reasonable requests, although I'd have to check the std::back_inserter to be 100% sure. I'll probably target them for Boost.Filesystem Version 3. Note however that path has some but not all of the characteristics of a standard container. I'd want to see persuasive use cases for adding functionality - just making path more like a std container without good reason is likely to lead to interface bloat without offsetting benefits.

I would also like to see pop_back() but this may not be as simple to implement, I'll have to check the code.

A use case would make this more compelling.

PS - My first post so I hope I'm on the right list, right message format, etc.

Looks good! Thanks, --Beman