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Relative vs. Absolute paths (was Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc)
From: |
C Y |
Subject: |
Relative vs. Absolute paths (was Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc) |
Date: |
Mon, 9 Apr 2007 13:03:45 -0700 (PDT) |
--- Waldek Hebisch <address@hidden> wrote:
> Relative $AXIOM have to change when you change directory.
Um. I'm not quite following you here Waldek - isn't that the whole
point of relative linking? We set $AXIOM once to define where the
toplevel Axiom directory is located, and then everything else changes
automatically?
> This means that some variable settings have to be repeated. Passing
> of filenames to programs working in different directory become
> harder.
Can you give an example? I'm missing something, I think - what is the
difference between having $AXIOM/lib/lib1.spad vs.
/usr/local/axiom/mnt/linux/lib/lib1.spad? If I am in $AXIOM/lib and I
tell the program to output to $AXIOM/bin, or I want a file in ../input/
or $AXIOM/input, (or for that matter $AXIOM/$INPUT if you want to
generalize) those should Just Work. Perhaps lisp has some limitations
here?
> Also relative paths are likely to hardwire relative
> positions of directories, making change harder.
Now I'm really confused. How do absolute pathnames not hardwire things
as much as relative pathnames?
> Recently I noticed that in Lisp relative paths behave in funny way
> (it looks that Axiom is frequently calling truename to make
> paths absolute and avoid problem).
I confess I have not fully understood Lisp's handling of paths as yet,
so perhaps there are some issues I am not aware of.
> So there are costs (IMHO substantial) to relative paths.
>
> Later:
> > Oh, yeah, one more thing: mingw uses windows native tools, in
> > particular options start with forward slash. I don't remember the
> > exact details, but at some point some of the absolute paths (using
> > Unix-style notation) started being interpreted as options; it isn't
> funny.
>
> Explicit drive letter should cure this problem.
Shouldn't Axiom not care at all what drive or directory it is in? I
would think the only thing most of the system should need to know is
where other parts of the system are relative to the toplevel Axiom
directory - where that toplevel directory is located shouldn't make
much difference.
I am sure I'm missing something important - is there an example where
the relative merits of the two approaches can be clearly seen?
Cheers,
CY
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- Re: [Axiom-developer] FW: Axiom on Solaris 10.2 x86, (continued)
- [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2007/04/08
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Waldek Hebisch, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Waldek Hebisch, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, gdr, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Waldek Hebisch, 2007/04/09
- Relative vs. Absolute paths (was Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc),
C Y <=
- Re: Relative vs. Absolute paths (was Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc), Gabriel Dos Reis, 2007/04/09
- Re: [Axiom-developer] HyperDoc, Gabriel Dos Reis, 2007/04/09
RE: [Axiom-developer] FW: Axiom on Solaris 10.2 x86, gdr, 2007/04/07