From: Mike Gold <mike.gold.4433@...>
Date: 2008-09-23T03:07:23+09:00
Subject: Re: File path operations?


I went for years without knowing about Pathname.  It seems rather 
underused.

The singleton methods File.basename, File.exist?, etc. are awkward 
because the proper abstraction is a path, not an arbitrary string. 
Moreover, these methods cut against the natural flow of ruby code. 
Compare

  File.join File.dirname(foo), "intermediate", File.basename(foo)

with

  foo.dirname.join "intermediate", foo.basename

I would like to see more ruby packages use Pathname.  If your method 
takes a string argument, then use it as a string.  However if your 
method takes a path name disguised as a string, consider taking a 
Pathname.  (In practice I expect you'd convert any non-Pathnames to 
Pathnames.)

Now that Pathname has been in the standard library since 1.8.0, perhaps 
it is time for the whole standard library to use it?  It certainly makes 
code cleaner and clearer.

It also discourages the use of problematic "#{x}/#{y}" constructs.  If x 
is nil, you are now pointing at the root directory, with not a peep of 
warning from ruby.
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