[MLton-user] Re: MLton OS.Path under Windows [MLton-user Digest, Vol 27, Issue 6]

[John Reppy]

On Nov 14, 2008, at 12:54 PM, Andreas Rossberg wrote:

> On Nov 14, 2008, at 10.01h, John Reppy wrote:
>
>> Looking at the OS.Path specification, there is clearly an  
>> inconsistency in the definition of
>> absolute paths on Windows.  The confusion arises because Windows  
>> has the notion of a path
>> that is absolute relative to the current volume (but not strictly  
>> absolute, since changing
>> the volume changes its meaning).  I'm not sure what the correct fix  
>> is.  The path of least
>> resistance might be to change the specification of toString to read
>>
>> 	The exception Path is raised if vol <> "" and validVolume{isAbs,  
>> vol} is false.
>
> That would still allow fromString to deliver results that are not  
> considered "valid". For paths that are perfectly sensible.

I'm not sure what you are driving at?  Can you give some examples?


> I think the simpler and more coherent fix is to simply change  
> validVolume to allow empty volumes unconditionally on Windows.
>
>> Alternatively, we could redefine the notion of absolute path on  
>> Windows to require a
>> valid volume.
>
> I fear that this would require quite a few (incompatible) changes  
> with the potential to break existing code in subtle ways.
>
> Since we are at it, as I mentioned earlier (on the MLton list) I  
> have a number of other issues with inconsistencies in OS.Path. If  
> you are interested, I'd be happy to post them.

Please do so.

	- John