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

[Andreas Rossberg]

On Nov 14, 2008, at 16.00h, Wesley W. Terpstra wrote:
>
> In my opinion, no. The path \bar is not absolute in any useful sense,
> only in the sense that this is the definition in the basis
> specification.

Note again that, if you considered "\bar" as relative, then there  
would be no way to distinguish the paths "bar" and "\bar" in the  
triple representation - they would both map to {isAbs=false, vol="",  
arc=["bar']}.

I think the fallacy here is assuming that the isAbs flag has any  
semantic meaning. No, it is a purely syntactic piece of information  
about the presence of the root separator. Once you realise that, the  
spec makes sense (up to validVolume). Maybe another choice of name  
would have been better, though.

- Andreas