I get this warning when I pass a string as :directory to make-pathname
in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
What makes this a silly argument?
Ari.
--
Elections only count as free and trials as fair if you can lose money
betting on the outcome.
In article <··············@deb.lib.aero>, Ari Krupnik <···@lib.aero>
wrote:
> I get this warning when I pass a string as :directory to make-pathname
> in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
>
> What makes this a silly argument?
Because it should be a list of strings: ("home" "ari" "foo").
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> In article <··············@deb.lib.aero>, Ari Krupnik <···@lib.aero>
> wrote:
>
>> I get this warning when I pass a string as :directory to make-pathname
>> in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
>>
>> What makes this a silly argument?
>
> Because it should be a list of strings: ("home" "ari" "foo").
Ah! I get it now. Thanks for the clarification. I guess the first
element in that list should be :absolute ?
Ari.
--
Elections only count as free and trials as fair if you can lose money
betting on the outcome.
Ari Krupnik <···@lib.aero> wrote:
+---------------
| Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> writes:
| >> ...in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
| >> What makes this a silly argument?
| >
| > Because it should be a list of strings: ("home" "ari" "foo").
|
| Ah! I get it now. Thanks for the clarification. I guess the first
| element in that list should be :absolute ?
+---------------
Given your name and the string you started with, yeah, almost certainly!
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
From: Kent M Pitman
Subject: Re: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY:
Date:
Message-ID: <u4pxkln8a.fsf@nhplace.com>
····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Ari Krupnik <···@lib.aero> wrote:
> +---------------
> | Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> | >> ...in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
> | >> What makes this a silly argument?
> | >
> | > Because it should be a list of strings: ("home" "ari" "foo").
> |
> | Ah! I get it now. Thanks for the clarification. I guess the first
> | element in that list should be :absolute ?
> +---------------
>
> Given your name and the string you started with, yeah, almost certainly!
And personally I'd prefer
:DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE "HOME" "ARI" "FOO") :CASE :COMMON
so that my code would port to other systems that might not have the
same case conventions. In :CASE :COMMON, uppercase means "the native
case of the file system" (so it would be lowercase on Unix) and
lowercase means "the non-native case of the file system". There
aren't a lot of non-lowercase systems left, so perhaps it's just a
useless fight on my part, but so it goes.
If we did it today, we'd probably have flipped the case used for
common case, but ironically that would probably have caused a lot more
confusion, because people wouldn't understand that it was something
different than native case. They would think it meant "this is the
most common case that file systems use". What I like about
all-uppercase even today is that it stands out saying "this is a
representation" as opposed to "this is the actual filename"...
Then again, you can see I don't suffer from the same phobia of uppercase
that some people do. Looking at the above, it didn't even occur to me I
was typing in uppercase for the symbols--I just did it instinctively.
Again, because it stands out nicely against a background of English text
without my having to use fonting.
Ah well.
On 2006-07-14 07:18:29 +0100, Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> said:
> And personally I'd prefer
>
> :DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE "HOME" "ARI" "FOO") :CASE :COMMON
[...]
> Again, because it stands out nicely against a background of English text
> without my having to use fonting.
Those little COBOLism remnants are just the little grains of sand
that keep Lisp interesting. I mean that a perfect Lisp would just
be too boring :-)
--
JFB
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> writes:
> ····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
>
>> Ari Krupnik <···@lib.aero> wrote:
>> +---------------
>> | Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> writes:
>> | >> ...in CMUCL: Silly argument for a unix DIRECTORY: "/home/ari/foo"
>> | >> What makes this a silly argument?
>> | >
>> | > Because it should be a list of strings: ("home" "ari" "foo").
>> |
>> | Ah! I get it now. Thanks for the clarification. I guess the first
>> | element in that list should be :absolute ?
>> +---------------
>>
>> Given your name and the string you started with, yeah, almost certainly!
>
> And personally I'd prefer
>
> :DIRECTORY (:ABSOLUTE "HOME" "ARI" "FOO") :CASE :COMMON
>
> so that my code would port to other systems that might not have the
> same case conventions.
Thank you for pointing this possibility to me, I was not aware of
it. I'm not sure how useful it is in this case however - I'm
hard-pressed to think of a filesystem that would not follow Unix case
conventions that would have a top-lever "home" directory. This
particular directory name is not just limited to Unix machines, it is
limited to a specific instance of a Unix machine, deb.lib.aero :=)
Ari.
--
Elections only count as free and trials as fair if you can lose money
betting on the outcome.