On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 7:53 AM Niall Douglas via Lib-Ext <
lib-ext_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 26/08/2019 22:32, David Stone wrote:
> > I have several times written (and seen written) code like
> >
> > auto directory = std::filesystem::path(...);
> > for (auto const & path : directory) {
> > use(path);
> > }
> >
> > when what I meant was
> >
> > auto directory = std::filesystem::path(...);
> > for (auto path_it = std::filesystem::directory_iterator(directory);
> > path_it != std::filesystem::directory_iterator(); ++path_it) {
> > use(*path_it);
> > }
>
> I'd have some sympathy for you if you had written:
>
> auto directory = std::filesystem::path(...);
> for (auto const & path : *directory) {
> use(path);
> }
>
> ... and you did not get directory enumeration, as it would be reasonable
> to expect dereferencing a path might do something like contents
> enumeration.
>
> But if you iterate a container of X, you expect to yield X.


Well, I can see the logic for someone naively assuming that "/usr/local"
would be a 'container' holding "/usr/local/include", "/usr/local/bin",
"/usr/local/lib", and so on. That's *very roughly* what happens at the
filesystem level when you do an `ls`. It wouldn't be very "C++-ish" to
design the actual class type that way, but a naive user by definition
doesn't know that.

A user who has worked in C++ for a while, and knows that C++ treats paths
essentially as strings, might naively assume that "/usr/local" was a
string-style 'container' holding '/', 'u', 's', 'r', '/', 'l', 'o', 'c',
'a', and 'l'. (They might even verify that `path::value_type` is a
character type. It is.) As you say, for historical reasons that's not what
the Committee gave us; but a user who merely *uses* C++ by definition
doesn't know committee political history.

Any user is surprised (the first time) when "/usr/local" turns out to be a
'container' holding the meaningless fragments "/", "usr", and "local".

–Arthur