I wasn't happy with the way it dealt with Dir vs File things. In his
version of the library, a `Path b Dir` always ends with a trailing
path separator and `Path b File` never ends with a trailing path separator.
IMO, it is nonsensical to make a Dir vs File distinction on path level,
although it first seems nice.
Some of the reasons are:
* a path is just that: a path. It is completely disconnected from IO level
and even if a `Dir`/`File` type theoretically allows us to say "this path
ought to point to a file", there is literally zero guarantee that it will
hold true at runtime. So this basically gives a false feeling of a
type-safe file distinction.
* it's imprecise about Dir vs File distinction, which makes it even worse,
because a directory is also a file (just not a regular file). Add symlinks
to that and the confusion is complete.
* it makes the API oddly complicated for use cases where we basically don't
care (yet) whether something turns out to be a directory or not
Still, it comes also with a few perks:
* it simplifies some functions, because they now have guarantees whether a
path ends in a trailing path separator or not
* it may be safer for interaction with other library functions, which behave
differently depending on a trailing path separator (like probably shelly)
Not limited to, but also in order to fix my remarks without breaking any
benefits, I did:
* rename the `Dir`/`File` types to `TPS`/`NoTPS`, so it's clear we are only
giving information about trailing path separators and not actual file
types we don't know about yet
* add a `MaybeTPS` type, which does not mess with trailing path separators
and also gives no guarantees about them... then added `toNoTPS` and
`toTPS` to allow type-safe conversion
* make some functions accept more general types, so we don't unnecessarily
force paths with trailing separators for `(</>)` for example... instead
these functions now examine the paths to still have correct behavior.
This is really minor overhead. You might say now "but then I can append
filepath to filepath". Well, as I said... we don't know whether it's a
"filepath" at all.
* merge `filename` and `dirname` into `basename` and make `parent` be
`dirname`, so the function names match the name of the POSIX ones,
which do (almost) the same...
* fix a bug in `basename` (formerly `dirname`) which broke the type
guarantees
* add a pattern synonym for easier pattern matching without exporting
the internal Path constructor
Here I copied the blog post announcing the library, because it describes
it very well, and not everyone who discovers the library will know where
to look for such a comprehensive description.
http://chrisdone.com/posts/path-package
I've made two edits to that post to reflect new things:
1. On line 123 there is a mention of ‘fromAbsDir’ and other similar
functions.
2. On line 363 I've put a link to my ‘path-io’ package that provides
well-typed interface to ‘directory’ and ‘temporary’. I've written the
package for my personal needs, because I was tired of the endless
conversion and I wanted things like recursive copying of
directories. When I published it, someone opened an issue asking to
add some functions from Stack's ‘Path.IO’ — that's what I'm going to
do. I expect it will be able to replace ‘Path.IO’ in Stack soon. I've
talked to Stack maintainers and they like the package and have
nothing against the switch.
Julian Ospald