[fpc-pascal] DoDirSeparators and special filenames on Windows

[Jürgen Hestermann]

Am 2013-09-07 18:07, schrieb Sven Barth:
 > The "\\?\" paths don't support relative paths

Then relative paths need to be expanded internally before use. If I have a deeply nested directory structure with paths longer than 255 characters then relative paths should work the same as when having shorter paths, otherwise it would be a ridiculous restriction. If that's what MS has designed (which would be just as I would expect it from their crap interface) then Lazarus/FPC should overcome this (if possible) by expanding all relative paths.


 > and also not all I/O-APIs support this convention.

For functions that do not support it it should simply not be used. Yet another argument to do it in the background so that the programmer can concentrate on the path name and does not need to think about when to use which naming convention.


 > In my opinion a programmer needs to know the quirks of the platforms he/she wants to target.

It is always better to know something. Therefore it should be carefully documented. But this is not an argument against it. It would just clean up the mess that MS has left for their users/programmers and unify the Lazarus/FPC file handling interface for all platforms.