abstract paths

[Mark Thornton]

Alan Snyder wrote:
> I also assume that the above components are a complete abstract 
> description of a Path in its role as a name. In other words, if you 
> deconstruct a path into these components and then reconstruct it 
> (using the same provider), the result would be an equivalent Path.
>
> If this is wrong, do say so (and put it in the documentation).
I think there are instances of File such that
    new File(f.toString())
is not equal to the original file 'f' (and in fact doesn't work at all). 
JFileChooser can return such objects on Windows. These files represent 
paths based on locations like "My Documents". Windows has never defined 
a programmatic string form for these paths. It would be rather useful if 
we had a way to obtain such 'roots' as Paths (as the actual underlying 
location can vary; i.e. "My Documents" isn't always called that).

Mark Thornton