Re: [xml] Lists in XML_CATALOG_FILES

[Sean Chittenden <sean chittenden org>]

> > <:~( 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?

Nope, that's File::SEPARATOR which handles the forward/backslash
funkiness for Windows/Unix.

> > 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.

Cool, did not know that.

> > 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.

PATH_SEPARATOR is used just like you would in a search path.

PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"

> > 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.

This is true though.  Hrm...  how can you concatenate multiple URLs
into a list?  Maybe a space works well, but if you've just got a set
of paths like /usr/local/share/sgml/catalogs:/opt/corp/sgml/catalogs
and the Win32 equiv, are you going to require that everyone convert
file paths to URIs if they've got multiple catalog dirs?  .... OR, do
I just have a complete lack of understanding (also possible). -sc

-- 
Sean Chittenden