filepath

[Simon Marlow]

Simon Marlow wrote:
> Ian Lynagh wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 09:17:56PM +0000, Neil Mitchell wrote:

>>>>     Prelude System.FilePath> splitFileName "foo"
>>>>     ("","foo")
>>> I'd say this was expected. In a similar way, takeDirectory "foo" gives
>>> "", not "./".
>>
>> I'd expect takeDirectory "foo" to be "." and dropFileName "foo" to be
>> "./" too.
> 
> Right, me too.
> 
> But this is more of a pervasive design choice.  It looks like 
> System.FilePath consistently treats "" as a valid FilePath meaning "the 
> current directory", and this would mean changing that policy.
> 
> As far as System.Directory is concerned, "" is not a valid FilePath 
> (i.e. you can't say getDirectoryContents ""), and the current directory 
> is denoted by ".".  So it would seem sensible for System.FilePath to 
> behave in the same way.

[ reviving an old thread ]

I've just come across this again.  It's quite inconvenient that

   takeDirectory "foo" == ""

because it means that you can't say

   doesDirectoryExist (takeDirectory f)

in other words, takeDirectory doesn't return a valid directory, at least as 
far as the OS is concerned.  Neil - is it possible to change this?

Cheers,
	Simon