Re: user-homedir-pathname in dos

[haible (Bruno Haible)]

Rick Taube <hkt@zkm.de> asks:

> Is there some reason that the function USER-HOMEDIR-PATHNAME is missing
> from the DOS port of CLISP?

That's how it is specified:

  (USER-HOMEDIR-PATHNAME) determines "the pathname that corresponds to
  the user's home directory". ...
  "The definition of home directory is implementation-dependent,
  but defined in Common Lisp to mean the directory where the user
  keeps personal files such as initialization files and mail."

Well, how could this make sense on DOS?

> Also, why is it an error to give lower case strings to make-pathname?
> 	> (make-pathname :name "test" :type "lsp")
> 	*** - MAKE-PATHNAME: illegal :NAME argument "test"

Because otherwise you couldn't rely on
 (pathname-name (make-pathname :name something))
being EQUAL to something.

Use PATHNAME or PARSE-NAMESTRING to convert strings to pathnames,
and make use of MERGE-PATHNAMES to combine pathnames.

> functions like DIR and PATHNAME all accept lower case file names.

But I consider MAKE-PATHNAME to be more low-level than PATHNAME.


                    Bruno Haible
                    haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de