From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2004-08-09T23:59:10+09:00
Subject: Changes to the semantics of basename/dirname?

There are some issues with the way that File.basename and
File.dirname work, at least on Windows. I also have an issue with
File.expand_path related to some of the issues of File.basename and
File.dirname. This may be present in more than just these, but these
are what I've seen over the past few weeks.

The first problem is that basename, dirname, and expand_path convert
\\ to /. This shouldn't be problematic in the general case (where
the path is then used in a Ruby command), but it would be useful to
indicate that conversion should not be done.

      # Current, invalid behaviour
    p = "a\\b\\c\\d.txt"
	basename(p)  #=> "d.txt"
    p1 = dirname(p)   #=> "a/b/c" (should be "a\\b\\c")
	basename(p1) #=> "c"
    p2 = dirname(p1)  #=> "a/b" (should be "a\\b")
	basename(p2) #=> "b"
    p3 = dirname(p2)  #=> "a"
	basename(p3) #=> "a"
    p4 = dirname(p3)  #=> "."
	basename(p4) #=> "."
	dirname(p4)  #=> "."

    p = "\\a\\b\\c\\d.txt"
	basename(p)  #=> "d.txt"
    p1 = dirname(p)   #=> "/a/b/c" (should be "\\a\\b\\c")
	basename(p1) #=> "c"
    p2 = dirname(p1)  #=> "/a/b" (should be "\\a\\b")
	basename(p2) #=> "b"
    p3 = dirname(p2)  #=> "/a" (should be "\\a")
	basename(p3) #=> "a"
    p4 = dirname(p3)  #=> "/" (should be "\\")
	basename(p4) #=> "/" (should be "\\")
	dirname(p4)  #=> "/" (should be "\\")

The second has to do with UNC/SMB share names.

  p = "\\\\host\\a\\b\\c\\d.txt"
      basename(p)  #=> "d.txt"
  p1 = dirname(p)   #=> "\\\\host\\a\\b\\c"
      basename(p1) #=> "c"
  p2 = dirname(p1)  #=> "\\\\host\\a\\b"
      basename(p2) #=> "b"
  p3 = dirname(p2)  #=> "\\\\host\\a"
      basename(p3) #=> "a" (should be "\\\\host\\a")
  p4 = dirname(p3)  #=> "\\\\host" (should be "\\\\host\\a")
      basename(p4) #=> "host" (should be "\\\\host\\a")
      dirname(p4)  #=> "\\\\" (should be "\\\\host\\a")

In this specification, the base directory (the "device", if you
will), is \\host\a, not \\ or \\host. Just as basename can never go
above "/" in Unix, it should never go above \\hostname\sharename on
Windows UNC shares.

I'm not sure if URI special cases should be built in, but
ftp://ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby would ultimately become "ftp:", which
isn't desired -- but if it doesn't do that, then NetWare device
support ("SYS1:\a\b\c\d.txt") would probably break.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca