diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/filename.n')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/filename.n | 57 |
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 28 deletions
diff --git a/doc/filename.n b/doc/filename.n index c2787ec..87ba467 100644 --- a/doc/filename.n +++ b/doc/filename.n @@ -3,11 +3,9 @@ '\" '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES. -'\" -'\" RCS: @(#) $Id: filename.n,v 1.13 2004/06/30 14:46:10 vincentdarley Exp $ -'\" -.so man.macros +'\" .TH filename n 7.5 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands" +.so man.macros .BS '\" Note: do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below! .SH NAME @@ -25,26 +23,24 @@ to be portable should not assume a particular form for file names. Instead, portable scripts must use the \fBfile split\fR and \fBfile join\fR commands to manipulate file names (see the \fBfile\fR manual entry for more details). - .SH "PATH TYPES" .PP File names are grouped into three general types based on the starting point for the path used to specify the file: absolute, relative, and volume-relative. Absolute names are completely qualified, giving a path to the file relative to a particular volume and the root directory on that -volume. Relative names are unqualified, giving a path to the file relative +volume. Relative names are unqualified, giving a path to the file relative to the current working directory. Volume-relative names are partially qualified, either giving the path relative to the root directory on the current volume, or relative to the current directory of the specified volume. The \fBfile pathtype\fR command can be used to determine the type of a given path. - .SH "PATH SYNTAX" .PP The rules for native names depend on the value reported in the Tcl -array element \fBtcl_platform(platform)\fR: +\fBplatform\fR element of the \fBtcl_platform\fR array: .TP 10 -\fBunix\fR +\fBUnix\fR On Unix and Apple MacOS X platforms, Tcl uses path names where the components are separated by slashes. Path names may be relative or absolute, and file names may contain any character other than slash. @@ -55,10 +51,10 @@ separator. Any number of trailing slash characters at the end of a path are simply ignored, so the paths \fBfoo\fR, \fBfoo/\fR and \fBfoo//\fR are all identical, and in particular \fBfoo/\fR does not necessarily mean a directory is being referred. +.RS .PP The following examples illustrate various forms of path names: -.RS .TP 15 \fB/\fR Absolute path to the root directory. @@ -79,16 +75,16 @@ current directory. .TP 15 \fB\&../foo\fR Relative path to the file \fBfoo\fR in the directory above the current -directory. +directory. .RE .TP -\fBwindows\fR +\fBWindows\fR On Microsoft Windows platforms, Tcl supports both drive-relative and UNC style names. Both \fB/\fR and \fB\e\fR may be used as directory separators in either type of name. Drive-relative names consist of an optional drive specifier followed by an absolute or relative path. UNC paths follow the general form \fB\e\eservername\esharename\epath\efile\fR, but must at -the very least contain the server and share components, i.e. +the very least contain the server and share components, i.e. \fB\e\eservername\esharename\fR. In both forms, the file names \fB.\fR and \fB..\fR are special and refer to the current directory and the parent of the current directory respectively. The @@ -99,7 +95,7 @@ following examples illustrate various forms of path names: Absolute UNC path to a file called \fBfile\fR in the root directory of the export point \fBshare\fR on the host \fBHost\fR. Note that repeated use of \fBfile dirname\fR on this path will give -\fB//Host/share\fR, and will never give just /fB//Host/fR. +\fB//Host/share\fR, and will never give just \fB//Host\fR. .TP 15 \fBc:foo\fR Volume-relative path to a file \fBfoo\fR in the current directory on drive @@ -122,7 +118,6 @@ Volume-relative path to a file \fBfoo\fR in the root directory of the current volume. This is not a valid UNC path, so the assumption is that the extra backslashes are superfluous. .RE - .SH "TILDE SUBSTITUTION" .PP In addition to the file name rules described above, Tcl also supports @@ -143,14 +138,15 @@ file. The behaviour of these paths when not trying to interpret them is the same as on Unix. File names that have a tilde without a user name will be correctly substituted using the \fB$HOME\fR environment variable, just like for Unix. - .SH "PORTABILITY ISSUES" .PP Not all file systems are case sensitive, so scripts should avoid code that depends on the case of characters in a file name. In addition, the character sets allowed on different devices may differ, so scripts should choose file names that do not contain special characters like: -\fB<>:?"/\e|\fR. The safest approach is to use names consisting of +\fB<>:?"/\e|\fR. +'\""\" reset emacs highlighting +The safest approach is to use names consisting of alphanumeric characters only. Care should be taken with filenames which contain spaces (common on Windows systems) and filenames where the backslash is the directory separator (Windows @@ -158,20 +154,25 @@ native path names). Also Windows 3.1 only supports file names with a root of no more than 8 characters and an extension of no more than 3 characters. .PP -On Windows platforms there are file and path length restrictions. +On Windows platforms there are file and path length restrictions. Complete paths or filenames longer than about 260 characters will lead to errors in most file operations. .PP -Another Windows peculiarity is that any number of trailing dots '.' in -filenames are totally ignored, so, for example, attempts to create a -file or directory with a name "foo." will result in the creation of a -file/directory with name "foo". This fact is reflected in the -results of 'file normalize'. Furthermore, a file name consisting only -of dots '.........' or dots with trailing characters '.....abc' is -illegal. +Another Windows peculiarity is that any number of trailing dots +.QW . +in filenames are totally ignored, so, for example, attempts to create a +file or directory with a name +.QW foo. +will result in the creation of a file/directory with name +.QW foo . +This fact is reflected in the results of \fBfile normalize\fR. +Furthermore, a file name consisting only of dots +.QW ......... +or dots with trailing characters +.QW .....abc +is illegal. +.SH "SEE ALSO" +file(n), glob(n) .SH KEYWORDS current directory, absolute file name, relative file name, volume-relative file name, portability - -.SH "SEE ALSO" -file(n), glob(n) |