abstract paths

[Alan Snyder]

Thanks to the article by Elliotte Harold, I have become aware of this  
work. I want to say that it is long overdue and will be much  
appreciated.

I want to make a pitch for supporting fully abstract paths, that is,  
paths that are not bound to any file system or file system  
implementation. A fully abstract path is simply a sequence of names.  
Before it can be used to access a resource, it must be presented to a  
file system (which might convert it to a bound path as in the current  
design).

Fully abstract paths can be useful whenever you are performing cross  
file system operations, such as mirroring. The same relative fully  
abstract path can be presented to two file systems to access resources  
that correspond by name. Fully abstract paths could also be used in a  
catalog (as might be created by a backup program), which stores  
metadata but does not contain the actual files.

I would imagine that fully abstract paths could be supported in the  
current design fairly easily by defining a concrete superclass of Path.

   Alan