Re: behaviour change in getDirectoryContents in GHC 7.2?

On 08/11/2011 15:42, John Millikin wrote:

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 03:04, Simon Marlow wrote:

...

I really think we should provide the native APIs. The problem is that the System.Posix.Directory API is all in terms of FilePath (=String), and if we gave that a different meaning from the System.Directory FilePaths then confusion would ensue. So perhaps we need to add another API to System.Posix with filesystem operations in terms of ByteString, and similarly for Win32.

+1

I think most users would be OK with having System.Posix treat FilePath differently, as long as this is clearly documented, but if you feel a separate API is better then I have no objection. As long as there's some way to say "I know what I'm doing, here's the bytes" to the library.

The Win32 package uses wide-character functions, so I'm not sure whether bytes would be appropriate there. My instinct says to stick with chars, via withCWString or equivalent. The package maintainer will have a better idea of what fits with the OS's idioms.

Ok, I spent most of today adding ByteString alternatives for all of the functions in System.Posix that use FilePath or environment strings. The Haddocks for my augmented unix package are here: http://community.haskell.org/~simonmar/unix-with-bytestring-extras/index.htm... In particular, the module System.Posix.ByteString is the whole System.Posix API but with ByteString FilePaths and environment strings: http://community.haskell.org/~simonmar/unix-with-bytestring-extras/System-Po... It has one addition relative to System.Posix: getArgs :: IO [ByteString] Let me know what you think. I suspect the main controversial aspect is that I included type FilePath = ByteString which is a bit cute but might be confusing. Cheers, Simon