[Ecls-list] Merge DELETE-FILE and RMDIR?

[Mark Cox]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll
<juanjose.garciaripoll at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Waldek Hebisch <hebisch at math.uni.wroc.pl>
> wrote:
>>
>> One thing to consider is consistency between PROBE-FILE, RENAME-FILE
>> and DELETE-FILE.  While legal, it would be embarassing if PROBE-FILE
>> said that file does not exist but DELETE-FILE succesfully removed
>> directory.  Similarly, if directories are supposed to be files
>> in DELETE-FILE IMHO they should also be allowed in RENAME-FILE.
>
> PROBE-FILE and RENAME-FILE already work with directories in ECL, even if the
> latter still does not like the trailing slash (should fix this)

I have two issues with respect to the merging of DELETE-FILE and
RMDIR:

1. For physical pathnames it seems straightforward, but I do
wonder if there are any unexpected gotchas when using logical
pathnames.

2. DELETE-FILE is defined by the CLHS. People who use ECL without
reading too much of the CLHS may expect DELETE-FILE to behave
similarly across implementations. For example, it was a huge shock to
me that in CLISP, PROBE-FILE signals an error when called with a
pathname that represents a directory.

This is one area where a CDR would be beneficial to the community to
try and address some of these inconsistencies.

Mark