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000054_icon-group-sender _Tue Jun 2 12:30:47 1998.msg
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From: gep2@computek.net
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 11:34:02 -0500
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Subject: Directory access facilities
To: icon-group@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU
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> [Richard O'Keefe points out that directories are more like tables than they
are like files, and suggests a built-in function that returns a table mapping
file names to records of attributes, like in Tcl.]
> Well, this is the kind of thing that gets object-oriented modeling people
excited. A directory *is* a file (it has persistent state, lives in the
file system name space, etc.) and it *is* a table (set of keys that map onto
values). Your point is well-taken. From a table it would be trivial to use
key(T) to generate the filenames for the common case that Paul wanted. If
you push the table analogy to its logical extreme, though, you should
implement the directory/table operations as direct manipulations on the file
system, like in the language EZ.
Good points all. Now let's not forget the multi-level hierarchical structure of
file directories...
Gordon Peterson
http://www.computek.net/public/gep2/
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