Feature #13789: Dir - methods

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[opti (Andreas Opti)]

If having (new) Dir.entries, Dir.chidren, I would also add:
Dir.entries (includes all),
Dir.files Dir.dirs Dir.symlinks Dir.pipes (Dir.something_more?)

Dir.file?(filename); Dir.symlink[s]?(*symlinks), etc # give one or more names
To be discussed if more names are useful, perhaps using Dir.file_s_, Dir.pipe_s_
=> return count of given files, that are of that type.

Also (a new) Dir.cd
should return nil (no exception), if cd isn't sucessful, else the new path.

thanks
Opti

[shevegen (Robert A. Heiler)]

I am having difficulties understanding your proposal.

If I understand it correctly, you propose to add one or more methods that
would return, e. g., all files or all directories or all symlinks
or all pipes, yes?

Then you also suggest Dir.cd ...

I have nothing at all against the proposal as such, but I believe
that the ruby core team may prefer if things could be split up
a bit, e. g. a separate proposal for Dir.cd.

The names Dir.file_s_ Dir.pipe_s_ are pretty bad so I do not think
that these have any realistic chance to be implemented.

To be honest, I think that the current proposal is too convoluted.

It would be better if you would split it up IMO.

The ruby core team has shown to be amenable to suggestions; see
File.empty? and Dir.empty? and similar useful methods.

I am not completely sure that the names that you picked would be
accepted though; in particular "Dir.dirs" is orthogonal to
"Dir.files", since you use the plural form of "file" in the
latter, but "dirs" is not the plural form of "directory".

I am not among the ruby core team so I can not say anything
there, but my gut feeling is that you may have a better chance
if you would split the proposals up and make an individual
case for these. There is already Dir.chdir(), but note that
if Dir.cd() behaviour is different, then matz may possibly
not accept it due to orthogonal behaviour and potential confusion
for ruby users. (I could not explain to anyone else why
Dir.chdir() would then behave differently to Dir.cd() as
I can not think of a legit reason for that. It may be ok
if it is an alias, I don't mind that; I myself mostly use
wrapper methods, such as "def cd(i); Dir.chdir if File.directory?(i); end"
or something like that, and then directly use "cd something").

You have a point in regards to Dir.entries, and using
shortcuts such as Dir.files etc... - while this is already
doable via .select/.reject filters, considering that I also
do use this a lot, I would not mind more support within ruby
itself. (I use Dir[] almost exclusively though so I can not
even say whether I would use Dir.files; for some reason, I found
Dir[] to be superior to Dir.entries ... hard to explain why for
me ... note that I am not entirely sure whether Dir.files etc..
would be a good addition as such, even though I am also the first
to agree that it would be useful to be had. Perhaps let's wait
for a bit and see what other people have to say about your
proposal as well.)

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

Dir.children(dir) behaving as Dir.entries(dir) - ['.', '..'] would be nice.
I have wished many times Dir would have such a method, and the ./.. are almost never useful.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

• Status changed from Open to Rejected

Rejected. You can simply filter Dir entries. If you have concrete use-case of the method, reopen the issue, please.

Matz.

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

• Related to Feature #11302: Dir.entries and Dir.foreach without [".", ".."] added