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From: darin@ut-dillo.UUCP (Darin Adler)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: HFS problems
Message-ID: <158@ut-dillo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Apr-86 01:48:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-dillo.158
Posted: Wed Apr  2 01:48:01 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Apr-86 07:48:18 EST
References: <184@tekchips.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 42
Summary: Relative Paths

In article <184@tekchips.UUCP>, chips@tekchips.UUCP (Chip Schnarel) writes:
> Now some controversy:  Should the form of these "path" resources be STANDARD?
> I think so.  Perhaps there should be a PATH resource type. On the other hand,
> STR seems to work just fine.
> Also some sort of relative addressing needs to be included.
> 
> Example:
>     PrintFile:CurrentFolder:SomeSubFolder:TempFileFolder
> 		^^^^^^^^^^^^^--relative address
>     PrintFile:ParentFolder:SomeSubFolder:TempFileFolder
>		^^^^^^^^^^^^--relative address

HFS has, built into it, a relative addressing method.  The following are
Unix pathnames listed with the HFS quivalent.

Unix			HFS
----			---
/disk/file		disk:file
file			file
directory/file		:directory:file
/d1/d2/d3/file		d1:d2:d3:file
d1/d2/d3/file		:d1:d2:d3:file
.			no equivalent
./file			:file
../file			::file
../../file		:::file
directory/../file	directory::file

One thing that is missing on the Mac is a true PATH.  In other words, more
than one directory (folder) to search for files.  If you want to use a
"PATH" resource type as a standard, I would recommend that it be a string
list (STR#) rather that a single string.  Maybe someone wants to write some
code the does what is necessary to search such a path???

> Wild cards may also be useful.

Perhaps ...
-- 
Darin Adler	{gatech,harvard,seismo}!ut-sally!ut-dillo!darin

"...'cause they don't go for what's in the book and that makes 'em bad..."
								Frank Zappa