On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 10:31:37AM -0800, Doug Edmunds wrote:

Frank Urbach wrote:

...

...

to use the FileDirectory you have to use the full pathname on your

system e.g. C:\temp.

How then do I find out what the full pathname is of the current directory (the equivalent to '.')?

"FileDirectory default pathName" will give you the path to the default directory that is being used by Squeak. The actual directory is "FileDirectory default". And of course this is the same thing as "FileDirectory on: FileDirectory default pathName".

The default Squeak directory is actually not the same thing as "." at all. Different operating systems and file systems have different notions of what "current directory" means. For example, on Windows, the default current working directory is different for each individual volume (C:, D:, etc), and to evaluate a relative path name you would need to know both current volume and a current working directory for that volume. Since other operating systems (e.g. Unix) do not use the concept of different volumes, supporting this sort of thing within Squeak could get messy in a hurry.

For that reason, Squeak basically just ignores the issue and uses its own default, which may or may not happen to be the same as "." depending on how Squeak is installed and what OS you are using. The concept of a default Squeak directory is generic enough to make sense on most operating systems, and serves well enough for most purposes.

Dave