[Vm-dev] FilePlugin argument checking - primitiveFailed vs PrimErrBadArgument

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Sun Mar 4 20:57:39 UTC 2018



> On 04-03-2018, at 12:36 PM, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 04-03-2018, at 12:09 PM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Just as an example, file systems on Windows use a very different approach
>> for keeping track of file access times. On Windows, it is creation time,
>> last access time, and last write time, while on Unix (including OSX) it 
>> is last access time, last modification time, and last status change time.
> 
> And on RISC OS it's only the last-modified time.
> 
> Platform spread is *hard*

Oh, and let's consider the problems that can be caused by invalid assumptions about how file systems etc work; for example the way that directory lookup for the root directory works.

For a start not all systems have a meaningful concept of 'a root'. Windows/DOS has all the separate disk letters, and something else for network connected storage. RISC OS can have many different filing systems connected each with differing rules! My 'favourite' annoyance was always that to fake similar behaviour to unix, RISC OS had to scan for all connected FS handlers (which couldn't be done very well programmatically) and finding out what directories might exist on a CD drive meant spinning up the blasted drive! Imagine the delay involved in that. Although one can complain a bit about the implementation decisions made by people, we are at fault for implementing a less than helpful file system widget that insists on querying far too many directories to no real purpose.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: BW: Branch on Whim




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