From: Emmanuel Marty <core@suntech.fr>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 13:14:02 +0000

Re: / vs \ [Re: PenguinPlay IRC meeting. GGI developers wanted]

Neal Tucker wrote:

> I prefer to think of the problem not as "how do I convert UNIX paths
> to DOS paths", but "how do I represent paths in a platform-independent
> manner".  For example, your solution doesn't account for the fact that
> there are characters not allowed in DOS paths that are allowed in UNIX
> paths (and possibly vice-versa -- is '/' allowed in a DOS path?).  It
> also doesn't address multiple drives (which you mention), nor will it
> work for UNC paths ("\\thingy\blah\etc", which may be the same issue,
> but requires thought).  Not to mention that this also ignores other
> platforms, like the mac or others, which may or may not bother you.

Back when I wrote games (and no, i'm not old :), usually the game
was written for DOS or consoles of the time, so there wasn't much
system to fiddle with - so we used the "lowest common denominator"
technique - put all files in a data/ subdirectory or so and name
them using the most restrictive convention (8+3 of DOS, namely,
and using ISO chars only). Then change directories in data and
stay there; that avoids all bloat and naming problems. And back
at that time we were diskspace-conscious too :), so we usually
packed all data accessed by the game in a single file, so that it
wouldn't waste a lot of clusters; sometimes even compressed. That
solves the problem even more :)

Except for the 8+3 naming scheme that isn't really relevant anymore,
why would a game need to access data differently that than these
days ? It doesn't have to use absolute paths and be aware of where
it is installed, right ?


> Occasionally, I find myself saying "not exactly bulletproof, but good
> enough," and I usually kick myself later.

I'd agree with that. I'm working on some other project, and progressing
slower than if I just hacked code around quickly until it works, because
I put a lot of care into every line.. I hope it'll pay off..

--
Emmanuel