Re: [xml] Lists in XML_CATALOG_FILES

[Igor Zlatkovic <igor stud fh-frankfurt de>]

> <:~( Ruby has support for both windows and unix and what it's done is
> define a constant called File::PATH_SEPARATOR which is used in
> automatically constructing paths and lets ruby code be more
> portable...

Eh? You mean a directory separator, like '/' on Unix, '\' on Windows?

> I'd think there were other libraries out there that do the
> same thing, eps since spaces in paths is very valid and used too
> often.

Spaces are okay, I have tested this before I commited. You however must use
an URI notation if the path contains spaces. On Windows the following

  file:///c:/some%20directory/catalog

works. If the path does not contain spaces, then the native filesystem
notation works as well. The same goes for Unix.

> Anyway, on unix it's a colon (:), and on windows it's #ifdef'ed to a
> semi-colon (;).

You obviously don't mean a '/' or a '\'. Now I am puzzled about where such
thing can be used? Colon or semicolon cannot be used to construct a path,
but to construct a list of paths. Which part of the OS has use for such
lists? Which syscall understands it? The PATH envvar is the only place I can
think of.

> Would there be any chance that libxml could follow the same
> convention?  -sc

Colon cannot be used on any platform, because it is a valid character in an
URI notation. Breaking the support for the URI in XML_CATALOG_FILES will
bring other problems. URI support allows any platform to specify the path,
no matter how weird its native filesystem notation might be.

Ciao
Igor