# Fools Filing **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 19, 2008, 8:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224 "2008-08-19T08:23:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/1 "2008-08-19T08:23:47Z")
Ya know, it always seems like I’m jump’n all around with these file/ dir related classes/modules/methods. We have: - File - Dir - FileTest - FileUtils - Pathname Not to mention the String we often use to store the filename. It seems so hap hazard and the code is more often than not looking distinctly non-OOP. While using pathname helps, it doesn’t seem to quite cut it, and I end falling back to File or Dir here and there. So I came upon and particular case that got me thinking what the fundamental problem might be. I had extended Pathname with #glob basically like so: def glob(pattern, opts=0) Dir.glob(self + pattern, opts).collect{ |f| Pathname.new(f) } end Works great. But then I went to do: somepathname.mkdir(‘foo’) And it bombed. Why? Because it doesn’t expect a path argument, but rather it wants to make the directory indicated by the pathname object itself. So the two method don’t mesh well. You might think that my glob definition is the one out of sync, but if you define glob to act on the pathname itself, eg. Pathname.new(’\*’).glob, code starts to get ugly again. Compare: (Pathname.new(‘foo’) + ‘_’).glob Pathname.new(‘foo’).glob(’_’) My immediate thought was then, what about Dir, does it support #glob? That was immediately followed by, “hey, I never ever use Dir.new”. That was key. I looked it up: Instance Methods: close, each, path, pos, pos=, read, rewind, seek, tell That’s it. I don’t even fully understand what all those do. It’s treating a Dir as an IO object? And there’s the problem, what we need are “lazy” File and Dir classes that delegate to the IO ones, that allow us to do everything we need, rather than fussing with all these others. I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? T. ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/2 "2008-08-19T08:39:35Z")
On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 15:19 +0900, Trans wrote: > I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? [http://rio.rubyforge.org](http://rio.rubyforge.org) Is this kind of what you have in mind? ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 8:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/3 "2008-08-19T08:49:32Z")
Trans wrote: > My immediate thought was then, what about Dir, does it support #glob? > That was immediately followed by, “hey, I never ever use Dir.new”. > That was key. I looked it up: > > Instance Methods: > close, each, path, pos, pos=, read, rewind, seek, tell > > That’s it. I don’t even fully understand what all those do. It’s > treating a Dir as an IO object? This is wrapping the diropen function from C. Calling opendir returns a DIR\* (which is similar to a FILE\*). Individual directory entities can be read one at a time with readdir and the rest just modify the position indicator. Reading them all with glob may not always be appropriate. On very large directories (thousands of files), that would be pretty slow and use a good chunk of RAM. > And there’s the problem, what we need are “lazy” File and Dir classes > that delegate to the IO ones, that allow us to do everything we need, > rather than fussing with all these others. > > I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? > > T. Can you give a mockup of what you’re talking about? ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/4 "2008-08-19T19:29:23Z")
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 2:35 AM, Michael T. Richter [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 15:19 +0900, Trans wrote: > > I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? > > [http://rio.rubyforge.org](http://rio.rubyforge.org) +1 – Avdi Home: [http://avdi.org](http://avdi.org) Developer Blog: [Avdi Grimm, Code Cleric](http://avdi.org/devblog/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/avdi](http://twitter.com/avdi) Journal: [http://avdi.livejournal.com](http://avdi.livejournal.com) ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/5 "2008-08-20T00:58:35Z")
On Aug 19, 2:35 am, “Michael T. Richter” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 15:19 +0900, Trans wrote: > > > I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? > > [http://rio.rubyforge.org](http://rio.rubyforge.org) > > Is this kind of what you have in mind? Where’s that lib been hiding? Pretty nice stuff and well documented (in a very interesting way too btw, using rdoc on =begin comments in modules). However, it’s not quite what I had in mind. This is more like a special DSL --a very good and useful one, but I’m thinking more along the lines of emulating how we actually interact with the file system in a command shell. T. ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/6 "2008-08-20T00:59:10Z")
On Aug 19, 2:45 am, Michael M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > This is wrapping the diropen function from C. Calling opendir returns a > DIR\* (which is similar to a FILE\*). Individual directory entities can > be read one at a time with readdir and the rest just modify the position > indicator. > > Reading them all with glob may not always be appropriate. On very large > directories (thousands of files), that would be pretty slow and use a > good chunk of RAM. I see. That’s good to know actually. These are some cases were I could use this to optimize my code. > > And there’s the problem, what we need are “lazy” File and Dir classes > > that delegate to the IO ones, that allow us to do everything we need, > > rather than fussing with all these others. > > > I think I’ll throw this together. Anyone else interested? > > Can you give a mockup of what you’re talking about? I’ve been working on it today. I post it up tomorrow. T. ---
**Author:** ![tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tcsnide](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tcsnide)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fools-filing/146224/7 "2008-08-23T16:00:56Z")
On Aug 20, 7:29 am, “Michael T. Richter” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Then I will await your library with worms on my tongue. I mean > baited^Wbated breath. Well, worms or no, I put out a first draft of the project today. The gem should seed in about an hour. $ sudo gem install folio The website has quick and dirty README that is not 100% in sync with the API yet, but it give the overall idea nonetheless: [http://folio.rubyforge.org](http://folio.rubyforge.org) Note that this is very very very much an alpha release. The api _will_ change. But the overall design structure is in place, so you can see how it basically works. I have a few issues to workout: - What methods to provide to return a list of file names, versus file objects, versus an enumerator of file objects. - Whether dryrun, verbose, etc. modes should propagate from the “prompt” object into the file objects. - Is there a better name for Prompt? (Cursor maybe?) - Best name for file object classes: File instead of Document? Folder instead of Directory? T.